the people best fitted in ancient times to illuminate their neighbours, and that the inhabitants of the East were least of all indebted for the light which they enjoyed to any exertions of that people." The Hebrews themselves have never ventured to put forward such pretensions, and they have in fact admitted that the Chaldæans and Phonicians, as well as the Egyptians, were permanently settled and in a civilized state, at the time when the patriarchs were still wandering with their herds. Even Josephus has not ventured on so manifest a perversion of antiquity (which in his time he could hardly have attempted), but has rather endeavoured to prove the truth of the Bible narratives from their conformity with Babylonish myths.

The Rabbins and the Fathers of the Church were the first to advance the proposition, that the ancients, and particularly the Greeks, had borrowed their wisdom from Moses and the Prophets; while the Jewish scribes, in the opinion of one who was very well qualified to judge, have “shown a wonderful dexterity in extracting only what was bad from Aristotle and from the system of the Greek philosophers."

It may certainly happen that the victors themselves may in some cases become the pupils of the conquered, when the latter have reached a much higher grade of civilization; but Isaiah describes the Babylonians, even in his own day, as a wise and proud nation; and at a later period, Ezekiel bitterly reproaches his countrymen for their eagerness to adopt the views and opinions of their recent place of residence1. Very few remains have been preserved to our day of the mythological systems and ideas of the Chaldæans; those that we possess are contained, first, in the well-known fragments of Berosus, a priest at

1 Ezekiel xvi.

Babylon, who, according to his own statement, made this collection from the ancient annals which he found in that city (about B.C. 300)1; and next, in the more mutilated fragments of his scholar Abydenus. At the present time, however, when, from our increasing knowledge of eastern Asia, the same philosophical systems are constantly brought before us in more distinct and purer forms, these scanty records claim our attention, as well as the literature of the Hebrews; for the philosophical systems included in them may be traced back to a more original source in the physical astrology on which they are based, the high antiquity of which is demonstrated by the frequent denunciations of the prophets themselves against the astrology of Babylon. A similar degree of antiquity and originality may be traced in the Phoenician cosmogony of the writer called Sanchoniathon, a compilation of later times, which was translated by Philo of Byblus, who has deeply impressed a Grecian spirit upon it3: and in this case also, there are equally good reasons for believing that the foundation of the work was original, as that it was independent of Genesis. The same originality may be observed in the Egyptian myths, and in the statements of the Zendavesta, whose claims to a high antiquity a stricter criticism will rather tend to ratify than to weaken; and a similar independent character belongs in a very high degree to the ancient philosophical systems of India, whose weight of evidence is greater in proportion to

1 Josephus, Contr. Ap. i. 19; Eusebius, Præp. Evang. ix. 11, collected and edited by Richter. Leipzig, 1825.

2 Eusebius i. 9, &c., edited by Orelli. Leipzig, 1826. Compare Münter's Religion der Karthager (Religion of the Carthaginians). Copenh.

1816.

3 It is first mentioned by Athenæus, Deipnos. iii. 126. See Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 1275.

their greater distance from the legendary history of the Hebrews. All the mythical narratives of a like kind, which prevailed among these nations, were founded on the worship of the stars, and may therefore be considered as older than the mythical portions of Genesis, or at all events as independent of them in the source from whence they were derived; all these myths also bear some affinity to their parent soil, and are on that account more intelligible, whilst the ancient myths of the Hebrews frequently point to a Mesopotamian origin, and, when separated from their mythological connection, are comparatively insulated and obscure.

That ideas similar to those of Asia have been found among the native tribes of America, has been already observed1; the rude Iroquois, for example, were familiar with the myth which was common to the Hindoos and Greeks respecting the river of hell, the Lenni Lenape had the Hindoo myth of the earth being supported on the back of a tortoise2; while, on the other hand, they had no tradition of the building of a particular tower, and still less of the national legends peculiar to the Hebrews.

The conquests of Alexander opened to the Greeks their first imperfect knowledge of the Israelites; for the traces which Köster3 is disposed to discover in the Erembi mentioned by Homer1, though their possibility cannot be dis

1 See supra p. 147.

2 Compare Heckewelder, Nachricht von der Geschichte der Indian. Völkersch. (on Indian Tribes), pp. 434, 527.

3 Erläuterungen (Illustrations), p. 142.

4 Odyssey, iv. 83 :

Αἰθίοπας δ ̓ ἑκόμην καὶ Σιδονίους, καὶ ̓Ερεμβοὺς,
Καὶ Λιβύην ἵνα τ' ἄρνες ἄφαρ κεραοὶ τελέθουσι.

[The Scholiast seems to think that the Erembi may have been the
Arabs.]

proved, are still far too uncertain to afford any solid foundation. The earliest testimony we possess is that of Hecatæus of Miletus, who lived in the time of Nehemiah, (and therefore after the Babylonish exile) and who was acquainted with the division into tribes and many other particulars1. Most of the subsequent authorities were either themselves Jews, as Numenius, Eupolemus, Aristeas, Demetrius and Artapan, or they derived their information from Jews, as Hecatæus of Abdera did under Ptolemy Soter through Hezekiah2. In addition to this, when we consider the late date of the whole of Genesis, and especially of the first ten chapters3, the supposed reference of Homer to the Israelites must be regarded as a mere creation of the fancy.

Nothing can be more certain than that the Hebrew author borrowed from some foreign source the introductory myths of a physical or philosophical character, (which form, as we have already shown, the true mythology of every primæval history4), in order, as it would seem, to supply a solid foundation for the commencement of his national epic. He adopts these myths with all their peculiarities of style and colouring, but introduces nevertheless. his own peculiar views of the creation and origin of man3, and betrays from the first the patriotic object which directs him, by separating two accursed tribes [descendants of Cain and Canaan] from the mass of the surrounding people and placing them on the east and west, that they may not further interfere with the growing influence of 1 See Photius Cod. 154.

2 See Jost ii. 300.

3 See Schumann Proleg. p. lxix., in addition to Hartmann and Pustkuchen, and the Introduction to Chap. X. in the Comment. on Genesis.

4

See supra, Chapter I., pp. 5 and 6.

5 Gen. ii. and iii.

6 Gen. iv. and ix.

the Hebrew family. After widening the range of his narrative, and passing in review before the reader all the nations of the earth with whom he was acquainted, according to their language and position, he again reduces the narration (by the selection of the Semitic race) within the narrowest limits, and hence is enabled from this central point to follow with a steady hand the early fortunes of his people. The calling of Abraham is related, the land of Canaan is promised as an eternal inheritance, and the blessings of Jehovah are made to descend on all the succeeding patriarchs; the kindred tribes show themselves unworthy of their possessions, and receive a recompense elsewhere, or they voluntarily resign their claims and consent to leave the country; everything is here foretold by prophecy, in order to confirm the result; and the narrator can safely represent his ancestors as removing for a season to Egypt, can dwell with pleasure on the services which were rendered by Joseph to the Egyptian state, without a fear lest this desertion of Palestine should annul the promise of Jehovah ; for the Deity himself "goes down" with his chosen people, and deigns to lead them back to their own paternal possessions. This leading idea, which pervades the whole of the plan, and which has been further developed by the master-hand of Ewald, had thus been correctly stated by Friedrich1. "From the history of Abraham downwards, the book of Genesis appears to present a kind of historical apology for the just rights of the Hebrews to assume the possession of Palestine. These claims were founded on the possessions which had belonged to the individuals called the three patriarchs in that country2.

1

Segen Jacobs (Blessing of Jacob), p. 68.

2 Compare the introduction to Genesis chap. xii. in the Commentary.