downwards from the above false date of the first dynasty, and which therefore must be too low. But, besides this, the interval between the two groups is too small. The names themselves in the first three groups, assuming them to be properly deciphered upon the whole, are decidedly not Arian. It is only those of the fourth group, which begin to sound like Arian. Be this as it may, however, the King Urukh who is represented as the patriarch is a Chaldean, and must have reigned considerably earlier than 2234.

Under these circumstances, every friend of historic truth, as well as of etymology and archæology, must have been delighted to hear that the British government has assigned (since 1856) a considerable sum for the publication of the historical cuneiform inscriptions of the British Museum and of the fragments of the Chaldean syllabaria. It would be desirable, in order to avoid further delay, to publish the texts not already analyzed by Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. Norris, as they are, without interpretation or detailed comment.

III.

THE LANGUAGE AND RELIGION OF THE ABRAHAMITES.

THE relation of Abraham to the mythology of Kanaan was the direct reverse of his position as regarded their language.

Abram, the Hebrew who migrated from the TransEuphrates country, adopted the language of Kanaan, which had a close affinity with the Aramaic, although distinctly different from it. The language of Sidon, the first-born son of Kanaan, and that of the renowned Tyre is pure Old Hebrew; although, in the monuments we possess, the Phoenician is in some of its forms and names more archaic, in others more modern. The Karthaginian colonists carried over to Africa the Phoenician language of the ninth century

B.C., and doubtless also preserved in later times many an antique form which in the mother country had undergone wear and tear. Hebrew, however, is the Kanaanitish dialect of the thirtieth century, adopted by Abraham in the stead of his own Aramaic tongue, and its whole development from that time forth was one of a very peculiar character. 1400 years after Joseph, Kanaan was occupied in common by Israelites, Edomites, and Kanaanites, as separate nations, and the Kanaanites, as the more remote connexions, were not even looked upon as belonging to the old race.

This circumstance explains the fact of the written Phoenician language (the oldest extant specimen of which is on the sarkophagus of Ashmunezer) and. the Hebrew of the Bible being as distinct as Dutch and Low-German: but the Hebrew and Aramaic differ as Danish and German. Abraham dropped the mother tongue of his race, the Aramaic, and adopted the Semitic idiom of the country which the Lord had assigned to him and his descendants. The language of the Bible is also called in the Old Testament (Isaiah xix. 18.) the language of Kanaan, in no instance Hebrew.

For further details I would venture to refer the reader to what has been said on this subject in the "Outlines" and in the introduction to the "Bible-work." The views there expressed are still further corroborated by our Comparative Egypto-Semitic Dictionary, as regards the formation of words.

With all this difference between their religious posi tions, it is nevertheless true that the connexion between the religious ideas of the Abrahamites and those of the Aramæans was in direct correspondence with the relation between their language and that of the larger family of nations from which Abraham separated off his own descendants, especially as regards the inherited historical basis of it. The natural groundwork of the religion of Abraham is the same Aramaic; it is only

Kanaanitish in so far as the two are connected in their beginnings. But while Abraham abandoned the language of Aramaa, in order to adopt that of Kanaan, he kept aloof from the prevailing Palestinian religion, the mythology of the land of Kanaan. He also threw off at once all connexion with the land of his birth, in every particular at variance with the religion internally revealed to him. While adopting the most direct antagonism to the still more corrupt religion of Kanaan, he also separated in all essential points from Aram. For, recognising as he did, and holding fast by faith, the direct and internal character of the relation between man and God, he founded upon this belief a new association, as had been done in the ⚫ remote Bactria by Zarathustra; whose reform of the Nature-worship did not, however, take effect in Babylon and among the Semitic races generally till five centuries after. The great deed of Abraham may be designated thus, that he retained only such of the national habits of the Aramæans and of their ancient traditions as were not in contradiction with his highest principle. Everything opposed to this was abolished, and the unobjec tionable elements were spiritualised: but the harmless reminiscences and expressions in popular use remained untouched.

Upon no other assumption can the indisputable traces of the original connexion be accounted for. We find not only old heathen expressions, such as the name of a public courtesan designated as the "dedicated" (the temple attendant who was consecrated to Mylitta), but also early mythological reminiscences mixed up with genuine historical tradition about the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs. We at the present day say our Lord was crucified on the day of Freya or Venus, without being scandalised by it, or feeling as if we were using profane language. This is true also of the coincidences with the mythological names that we have met with when explaining the theogonies of Babylon and of Philo.

The true God might just as well be designated by names which, like El, Elohim, were also used by the Aramaic or Kanaanitish races. Each of these had inherited them from their fathers; and Moses knew, and the educated Israelites remained a long time conscious, that they used them, not merely in their real, but also in their most ancient sense.

As regards the history, we have pointed out in what instances individuals are mentioned in Scripture, and those in which persons are intended to express races or epochs. The personality of Abraham is unquestionable, and all the important circumstances related of him and his race are strictly historical. The history of the Jewish patriarchs is no more a personal representation of an unhistorical state of popular life and the different phases of its development, than, as according to Dupuis and some obscure German writers, it is of constellations or Kabiri. All such notions are as unhistorical as the rabbinical views, but far more unpardonable.

The historical basis, on the contrary, is a morally conscious personality, in which the individuality of Abraham stands out by far the most prominently. As the arch-patriarch he stamps his image upon his posterity, indeed upon mankind. Isaac is as certainly the bodily son and Jacob the bodily grandson of Abraham, as Joseph is the bodily son of Jacob and great-grandson of Abraham.

But it is no less undeniable that during the lapse of the many centuries between Joseph and Moses, in which the tradition was developed into a popular epos among the tribes of Israel, many reminiscences and symbols of the pre-Abrahamitic times were interwoven into the history of the three patriarchs, as was the case with those of Charlemagne and Alfred. ISRAEL was a mythological name; the change, therefore, to Jacob originally meant nothing more than that he to whom the glorious vision was vouchsafed was the true Is

rael, the true wrestler with God. So also with the name of Esau (Usov), the Edomite brother of Jacob; and with Keturah, the wife of Abraham, in so far as he was considered the true ancestor of the Ishmaelitish Arabs. All this proves the impartiality and candour of the narrative which we possess. It adopts ancient tradition as far as it is inoffensive. When thus understood, the following synopsis of the parallels between the Biblical names and traditions, and the corresponding names and traditions of the ancient mythological Semites, will but enhance the respect for the antiquity and sacredness of our Biblical records.

IV.

SYNOPSIS OF THE POINTS OF CONTACT IN THE HEBREW NAMES OF GOD AND THOSE OF THE PATRIARCHS, AND THE OTHER DESIGNATIONS OF THE PRIMITIVE TIMES, WITH THOSE OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL SEMITES.

I. POINTS OF CONTACT IN THE NAME OF GOD.

'ADAM, the red, the earthy, ('ADAM or 'EDOM, the red,)

the first man.

the first man, Γήινος,

Επίγειος, Αυτόχθων.