They existed therefore previously to the historical narrative, that is, they belong to the pre-Davidic times. A clearer insight into them can only be obtained by internal criticism.

The narrative may be divided into two main portions. It is made up in part of external events, in part of a history of the internal life of men of the spirit. This is the real and the ideal element in all ancient history. Out of a combination of the two the epic narrative is formed. It implies that the external history in the traditions was combined gradually with the ideal element, according to the internal creative powers and views of later generations. The rigidity of the actual external history must be broken by tradition and poetry, in order that the idea may more freely pervade all the details: that is, the idea of the past destinies of mankind, as reflected in the noblest organs of the contemplative mind of the people.

It is this blending which we find in the narrative portions of Genesis in a vast variety of degrees, both in the fundamental writing and in the supplement. Yet it is evident that the ideal element predominates in the supplementary account, and that there is progressive research. The supplemental writer announces the most profound truths as the tradition of the fathers, and communicates, at the same time, many of the oldest records.

Both of them consequently contain the above three distinct elements: and why should there not be distinct earlier narratives likewise interwoven into the epic account itself? The fundamental writing, indeed, may be based upon an earlier epico-historical account. It must, however, be borne in mind that what we now possess is in the main the fundamental writing, which the second writer undertook to complete.

The more resting-places we discover on this road, the more credibility we impart to the sacred volume. For

if the false or childish, not to say Godless, notion of there having been a mechanical communication of the sacred books to a single man of God (that is, in the present instance, to Moses), for the purpose of transmission, be abandoned, our faith will rest upon the assumption that each compiler has told us something, not an invention of his own, but what he had learned or knew of his own knowledge; that he was a faithful vehicle of the traditions which came down to him; and that each of his successors has preserved this national and humanizing treasure with veneration and fidelity. In this way that which seems to have no meaning becomes reasonable, and an object of moral belief and serious contemplation to educated minds.

We come to this conclusion by sound science and research, as much as by methodical thought. By sounding the laws of mind we become conscious of eternal ideas in a symbolical language. What we know not to be true by the logical process we find through historical investigation to have been believed and acted upon instinctively, and expressed ritually and artistically. But, lastly, the discoveries in our own peculiar domain, those especially of Egyptian as well as Assyro-Babylonian antiquity, and preeminently those of historical etymology, have forced upon us the conclusion, that there is a far more remote background of early history than critics ventured to assume at the beginning of this century.

The art of writing books was invented ages before the time of Moses, and from him future writers will have to date the commencement of modern history in the stricter sense. The first invention of monumental writing does not even belong to the Asia of the second millennium before Christ with which we are acquainted, but either to a primeval Asia which has historically perished and the deposit of which was preserved in Egypt, or to Egypt itself.

A.

THE BIBLICAL TRADITIONS OF THE PATRIARCHS; OR THE ANTEDILUVIAN AGE.

THERE is notoriously, in the book of Genesis, or, as we may call it preeminently, the book of the Beginnings, a double list of Patriarchs. The one in the fourth chapter obviously belongs to the Jehovistic record, that in the fifth is an Elohistic narrative.

We place these two registers in juxtaposition, on the following page, in the shape in which they have come down to us.

Buttmann observed that as both lists have at the end Lamekh, so the preceding links, from Kain-Kenan downwards, correspond with each other exactly, excepting that in the first three, after Kain and Kenan, the order of the names is different. He also observed that the same names, Adam, Seth, and Enosh, correspond in the first three links of the Elohistic record. He contented himself with noticing these particulars. But with the facts now before us we cannot forget that we have found SETH as the oldest Semitic and Egyptian God; and this also brings to our recollection that the son of Seth is none other than "the Man." ENOS, indeed, is the ordinary Aramaic word for Man, as the Hebrew one is 'ADAM. In one case the designation would seem to be derived from the possession of manly strength, in the other from the reddish complexion of the men of Kanaan or Phoenicia. How then can Seth be the son of Adam and Enosh his grandson?

This brings us to the assumption, which will be made intelligible in the next table. The two existing versions lead to two independent series, which have precisely the same starting-points, and in which, leaving

YABAL,

Father of Shepherds who lived in Tents.

THE GENEALOGICAL REGISTER OF THE PRIMEVAL WORLD, FROM ADAM TO NOAH.

out of the question the change in the order of the intermediate names, the only difference is that the division. of mankind before the Flood is represented as taking place, at the end of the one, in the persons of the three descendants of Lamekh, whereas in the other the separation takes place through the three descendants of Noah. The latter account does not vitiate the former, for they take two wholly distinct views: division according to mode of life, and division of race. As to the discrepancy in the name of the Creator, the one common eternal truth which pervades them both is, that God created man in His own image. In the earliest tradition the Creator was called Jahveh-Elohim, and man himself Adam-in the other He is called SETH and man ENOSH. The first refers to the primeval country, Upper Mesopotamia (Aram); the latter to Palestine, Kanaan, the land of Seth, Sutekh. Noah is omitted in the first record, but that is no reason for saying it excludes him. One only treats of the early world before the great catastrophe, the other includes this. It is impossible that any Hebrew narrative should omit the name of Noah himself. This name (if not that of 'Hanokh) is found at Iconium, in Asia Minor, where ANNAKOs announces the impending Flood, and no notice is taken of the warning. The following is the explanation we offer of the names of the Patriarchs, the descendants of Noah, according to the system adopted in this work.

'HAM is the inhabitant of Egypt, the Dark, the Black.

SEM, the oldest patriarch of Israel, the glorious, the renowned from him comes 'ADAM-'EDOM, the

Red Man (whence the name Phoenician). YAPHETH, the bright, the fair, is the White Man of Northern Asia.

We have then the dark-, the red- (and he is the