An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathæan Agriculture/Chapter II

by Ernest Renan

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. Quatremère and Dr. Chwolson. Ibn Wahshíya translated “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” into Arabic in the year 904 of our era. The original text is universally 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. Quatremère,—must have elapsed between 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 consider of what an archaical character the Aramaic text must have appeared to a Chaldæan 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 religious revolutions of Chaldæa have been too sweeping for the possibility of its language preserving such an identity. The philologists of antiquity, and those of the middle ages, being ignorant of the principles of comparative grammar, were not able to interpret the archaical remains of their own language. I might add also that the preservation of a work of the nature of “The Book of Nabathæan 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 careless, diffuse, bald style, full of minute discussions and extraneous matter. Books of 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 itself that one must expect more convincing arguments. It will be confessed, however, that the opinion which attributes such remote antiquity to “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” must be abandoned, if I succeed in proving that its author understood Greek science, the institutions of more advanced (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 translation of Ibn Wahshíya, especially when it treats of the nomenclature of plants;^[1] but he meets the difficulties which this peculiarity presents, difficulties which Prof. Meyer has already insisted on, with a general plea of rejection. He thinks that it is Ibn Wahshíya who has substituted the names in use in his own time for Nabathæan names, and that he has added to them their various synonymes. That is certainly by no means impossible. It must be remembered, however, that Ibn Wahshíya 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 Nabathæan 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 ordinary work. The Greek names given by Ibn Wahshíya, moreover, are not the vulgar, but 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 Wahshíya 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 Wahshíya.

In all that treats of the names of towns and cities, M. Quatremère affirms that he has not found in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” the name of any of the Greek cities of the East. Dr. Chwolson^[2] 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 Wahshíya has substituted for one more ancient: nothing can be more gratuitous. 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 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.^[3]

Proofs stronger still establish satisfactorily, in my opinion, the fact that the author of “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” had acquaintance with the writings of the Greeks. In various passages of “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture,” which seem to have escaped the attention of M. Quatremère, there are allusions to the Yúnánís, 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 difficulty. 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 before Christ—it will be seen presently that M. Chwolson needs that especial date—the Ionians may have had dealings with the Babylonians.^[4] But the passages, where there is mention of the Yúnánís, are quite at variance with such an explanation. The subject there is, in fact, that the Greeks were a learned nation, possessing a cultivated literature. Such passages do not carry us, I maintain, to the days of the Heraclituses and the Thales’, who wrote scarcely anything, 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 on the mallow,^[5] 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 (يونانيون‎) 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 the Greeks had a scientific system of medicine at the time when “The Agriculture” was composed. Greece, he observes, might very well have had a popular pharmacopœia and such receipts as are found in the heroic age, 1500 years before Christ. Doubtless; but such popular pharmacopœias 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:^[6] “Concerning this plant, the Chaldæans 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 Chaldæans as regards the influence of the moon on plants.^[7] It is not clear that he treats here of a written, regular science no less of the Greeks than of the Chaldæans.

But the most striking passage in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” relating to the Greeks is this. Concerning a plant called búkásiá,^[8] 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. Chwolson 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 possibilities, careless of thus accumulating against itself improbabilities, is undoubtedly irrefutable; but it is no longer criticism. The difficulty which results to Dr. Chwolson by these allusions to the Greeks, which are found in “The Nabathæan Agriculture,” becomes the more grave, from the fact, that the Greeks are mentioned not only by Kúthámí, but by one of the authors whom he quotes, Mási the Suranian. According to Dr. Chwolson’s theory, Mási cannot have lived later than two thousand years before Christ.^[9] One is naturally curious 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, Támithri,^[10] I say also to thy neighbours, the Ionians (Yúnánís), whom, except for the great aversion that I have to abuse, I should not hesitate to call mere brutes, although excellent men have appeared among them; they outbid one another in vaunting up themselves as to be preferred to the natives of Babylon.”^[11] “Twenty years ago,” says Dr. Chwolson, “when negative criticism was still at its height, it would no doubt have been concluded from this passage that Mási 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 disdainfully. 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 Yúnánís are expressly mentioned are not the only ones which prove that Kúthámí had felt the influence of the Greeks. There are other passages more embarrassing still to scholars who attribute to “The Nabathæan Agriculture,” a remote antiquity. In the chapter which treats of the cultivation of beans, these words occur: "This is why Armísá (ارميسا‎) (Hermes) and Agháthádímún (اغاثاديمون‎) (Agathodæmon^[12]) have forbidden persons of their country the use of fish and beans, and have strongly insisted on this prohibition."^[13] 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 Nabathæan Agriculture," all idea of successive 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 Agathodæmon, though it is obvious that these are Neo-Platonic fictions, adopted, among others, by the Sabians or Modern Babylonians.^[14] Finally, he attempts to deny the identity of Armísá and Hermes. Armísá was a sage of Babylon; and, indeed, Armísá is represented in many Sabian traditions as a Chaldæan 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 explains the singular transfer by means of which a crowd of the traits of Greek mythology 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 (هرميس‎), it should be remembered that nearly all the proper names in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture,” have the emphasised termination a. Ibn-Abi-Oceibia, wishing to describe the pronunciation of this word, writes it thus, ارميس‎‎.^[15]

I have no doubt that many of the extraordinary names, which “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture,” presents to us, might be traced, in the same manner, to Greek forms, if we had their true reading. Támithri (طامثري‎) who figures also in Ibn-el-Awwam’s writings, is, in the opinion of both Banqueri and Wenrich, identical with Demetrius.^[16] I believe, also, that Askolábita or Asbúlúbita, to whom is assigned the part of founder of a religion and benefactor of mankind, is Ἀσκληπιός (Æsculapius),^[17] or rather Ἀσκληπιάδης. The part which is assigned to Asclepius in the apocryphal Hermesian legends is well known. Ibn-Abi-Oceibia^[18] takes a singular mythology of Æsculapius from a Syriac work; in another place^[19] he connects him expressly with Babylon. It is strange that Dr. Chwolson attaches any importance to such chimeras. He even supposes that his Askolábita^[20] must be considered as the prototype of the Asklepios of the Greeks. In the same ephemeral spirit he asks in another place^[21] whether Asklepios and Hermes were not, in reality, ancient sages deified after their death.^[22]

Kúthámí, however, does not only make allusions to Greece. I find also in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” evident traces of Persian influence. The author speaks of a people of Pehlevis (الفهلوية‎); he describes the Pehlevian language as a Persian dialect.^[23] Dr. Chwolson gets out of this difficulty by remarking that nothing positive 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 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 retouching 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 proceeded more machanically.

But why dwell further on this passage, when Dr. Chwolson admits that the author of “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” speaks in many places of the Persians, their religion, their philosophy, and their science; and always with an expression of the greatest respect.^[24] 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”^[25] (هوم‎), calling this plant thus by the most modern form of its name. Dr. Chwolson explains away the objection which arises out of these passages in the same way as he does those which result from the mention of Ephesus and Hermes. “The Iranians,” he says, “and their institutions, existed full thirteen centuries before Christ; the Babylonians were, 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 obscure point, I boldly assert that these institutions, 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 Nabathæan Agriculture;” and that it is certain that there is no trace of such a word in the Zend Avesta, the priests there being termed athravó, and that the name of Magi does not appear to have been given to the Zoroastrian priests till after the establishment of the Persians at Babylon.^[26] I do not insist much on this last point; for Dr. Chwolson might reply that the term مجوس‎ (magi) may have replaced a more ancient title, in this version of Ibn Wahshíya. Nevertheless it must be confessed that, in general, Magi-ism, or the Magian faith, as it is found in Kúthámí, bears a much stronger resemblance to apocryphal Parsee-ism, altered by the Hostanes and the Astrampsyches, 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 شياشق‎. It is well known that all Persian words ending in h are terminated in Pehlevian by k.^[27] It is also certain that the word سياسة‎, “rules, directions,” is not Arabic.^[28] It appears, then, very probable that شياشق‎‎ is only the Pehlevian form of سياسه‎‎. The word سياسة‎‎ 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 Kúthámí. He speaks also of the Indians and the Egyptians.^[29] I do not lay so much stress on his allusion to the Egyptians, who may have had organized sciences at the remote period^[30] 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 differing ways we arrive at the conclusion 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 Nabathæan Agriculture,” and I freely admit, with Dr. Chwolson, that the passage where they are mentioned is an interpolation of Ibn Wahshíya.^[31] But, if their name does not appear in the work of Kúthámí, it is impossible not to perceive their influence. Can it be doubted after having read the passage which is here given:^[32] فان قال قائل ان الكسدانيين بدؤا بالتعريض بالجرامقة فانه لا يصدق في هذا لانّ الجرامقة ليس من نسل ادم والكسدانيين من نسلة ولغة الجرامقة واسمآؤهم لِما سمّوا ينبغي ان يكون قبل ادم الذي سمّا لكلّ شيّ اسمآء استأنفه ووضعه فالجرامقة اذٍ لم يضادّوا الكسدانيين انما ضادّوا ادم لان ادم سمّي هذا الشجرة باقرماعي والناس مجمعون علي انّ ما رسمه ادم هو الحق والصواب وما رسمه غيره باطل فالجرامقة من وُلْد الشابرقان الاول وليس هو نظير ادم ولا عديله ولا مقاربه ايضاً ۞‎

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 Chaldæans or Babylonians were not agreed; the author, always full of his ideas of disputed precedence, then proceeds to say:

“There are persons who believe that the Chaldæans began the attack on the Assyrians; but it is not so. The Assyrians, in fact, are not of the race of Adam, while the Chaldæans 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 organized language itself. Therefore it is not the Chaldæans whom the Assyrians oppose, but Adam; for Adam named this plant akermaï. Now, it is universally acknowledged that what Adam ordained is true and wise; and what others have ordained is without foundation. Then, too, the Assyrians 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, chap. ii. 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,^[33] 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 (ausfŭhrlichere) passage on the subject. Certainly such a passage 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 serious objection to his own theory, another passage:^[34] وهما من نسل اخوين من وُلْد ادم وكانا من امّ واحدة من ازواج ادم ونسآيه لانّ ادم علي ما ذكر العلمآء بالنسب وَلَدَ اربعة وستّين وُلْد اثنين وعشرين انثي واثنين واربعين ذكر فاعقب من الذكور منهم اربعة عشر وُلْدا والباقين لا عقب لهم باق الي الآن ۞‎ “These two nations (the Canaanites and the Chaldæans) 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 descended to our times.” In a third passage^[35] 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.^[36]

This direct form is not the only one under which the Biblical or apocryphal traditions of the Hebrews seem to have found their 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 Nabathæan 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 patriarchs, are those very patriarchs themselves. Dr. Chwolson denies it; but his efforts appear to me quite inadequate to disprove this identity, which has so forcibly struck both M. Quatremère^[37] and Prof. Ewald.^[38] Let me endeavour to prove that Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, are to be found in “The Book of Nabathæan 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 most important part in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” is Adami. Adami was considered as the founder of agriculture in Chaldæa;^[39] to him are attributed certain books of which Kúthámí doubts the authenticity, and which he found altered or interpolated. Kúthámí, a zealous monotheist, quotes him among his authorities. We know that many apocryphal writings were attributed to Adam,^[40] that the Mendaïtes 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.^[41] Can there remain any doubt about this identity, when it is seen that Adam bears, in “The Agriculture,” the title of ابو البشر‎ Father of Mankind,^[42] a title which all the Moslem East gives to Adam.^[43]

Ishíthá,^[44] the son of Adami, described as a religious legislator, as the founder of astrology 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.^[45] Ishíthá, according to “The Agriculture,” had followers called Ishíthians; an organised sect are descended from him, having a sort of high-priest; and numerous writings were circulated under his name. These Ishíthians are very probably the sect of the Sethians, which played an important part in the first centuries of our era.^[46] All the fables which the Mussulmans 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-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.^[47]

Akhnúkha (اخنوخا‎) or Hánúkhá (خنوخا‎‎)^[48] is Enoch.^[49] Ibn-Abi-Oceibia, drawing from Sabian sources, calls Enoch (اخنوخ‎‎).^[50] We know the part of “inventor” which this patriarch filled of old. The Arabs, also following these Sabian traditions, identify him with Hermes.^[51] No doubt the Babylonian Akhnúkha, often quoted in the same line with Armísá, is the legendary Enoch, who rises into such high favour towards the commencement of our era.

Anúhá, the Canaanite (انوحا‎‎),^[52] another of the founders, represented as the apostle of monotheism, is undoubtedly Noah. Indeed, a great deluge happened in his time. Moreover, Anúhá planted the vine, and he is always cited as an authority in speaking of the making of wine.^[53]

Finally, Ibrahim, the Canaanite (that is to say of Palestine), is certainly, in spite of what Dr. Chwolson^[54] says about it, the patriarch Abraham. He is represented in “The Agriculture” as an apostle of monotheism, 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 Nimrod and the idolatrous Chaldæans? Besides,^[55] Ibrahim, the Canaanite, is an Imám who undertakes long journies to avoid the famine which occurred in the days of the Canaanite king Salbámá.^[56] Then,^[57] too, he is brought into connection with Númrúda, 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^[58] of old, somewhat in an arbitrary manner, identifies Abraham with an ancient Babylonian sage mentioned by Berosus; the reputation of Abraham as a Chaldæan sage was established at that period no less than in that of Philo.^[59]

As to the part which Númrúda plays in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture,” as a Canaanite priest,^[60] 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 national tradition respecting him. Nimrod, as we shall presently see, was a popular personage in Chaldæa 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 denuded of true character, and over which is thrown that general level of mere platitude 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 altogether 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 established fact, that each one of the personages I have enumerated, all of whom are given in “The Agriculture” as ancient Babylonian sages, is the representative of one of those classes of apocryphal writings of Babylonian or Syrian origin, which bear the name of a patriarch, and round which are grouped a greater or less number of followers. “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” 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 Kúthámí. The apocryphal traditions 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 relating their fables of Edris and Lokman, never acknowledge that they owe them to the Jews, but always seem to forget or ignore the fact.^[61]

If we look at the general character of “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture,” independently of the peculiarities which have still to be adduced, as much, at least, as it is possible to do, from the extracts of M. Quatremère and Dr. Chwolson,^[62] we shall find in it all the evidences of lower antiquity:—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 contrary to that of works of high antiquity. There the author keeps ever in the background, to render more prominent the doctrines 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 literature which mark the decay of human intellect. A great number of controversial books are mentioned in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture:” Másí, the Suranian, at least two thousand years before Christ, according to Dr. Chwolson, addresses an epistle in verse to his son Kenked:^[63] Támithri, the Canaanite, writes a book against Anúhá, the Canaanite: Dewánáï, three thousand years before Christ, wrote against the Syrian Mardáïád, who gave Syria the preference over Babylonia; and threatened him with a speedy death if he did not retract this impious heresy:^[64] Másí and Támithri are in scientific correspondence with one another; and in another place are made to write against each other.^[65] Kúthámí, in the name of the Chaldæans, disputes their literary priority with the Canaanites on the most futile subjects; thorough and engrossing national vanity throws an insipid air over the whole work. I am willing to admit that this disease is a very old one in the world; but it betrays itself, with artlessness, 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 Nabathæan Agriculture” thus appears to me to be imbued 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.

I leave the examination of the scientific theories of “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” to those who are familiar with the history of the natural sciences. Such an examination will not be possible till the work of Kúthámí is published in its entirety. I shall only make one observation on this head: the classification of plants into cold and warm occurs incessantly in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture.”^[66] It is known that this classification is later than Theophrastus, who, in that general theory, lays bare one basis of Greek Botany.^[67] I shall only point out to astronomical scholars two passages^[68] where there are allusions to the division of the zodiac into twelve signs, and to the seven planets. The philosophy of Kúthámí, 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 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, reflective, and systematic forms which they assume in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture.” Prof. Ewald is right in believing that such passages bespeak the full development of a monotheistical religion.^[69] The kind of incredulity towards the received religion which peeps out in Kúthámí and several of his countrymen, and the atheism of which some traces are perceptible in his writings, point to the works of Berosus and Sanchoniathon, and belong to the epoch of the Seleucides. It is well known that the religious creeds in Babylon were much shaken at that period, and that many persons affected a sort of materialism and impiety, in the belief that by so doing they were following Grecian style and manner.^[70]

1. Pp. 81, 82.
2. Page 36.
3. See Pausanias Damasus, Περὶ Ἀντιοχείας, in Müller’s “Fragmenta Historiæ Græcæ,” vol. iv. p. 467 ff.
4. Page 86.
5. Page 88.
6. Pp. 88, 89.
7. Pp. 89–91.
8. Page 89.
9. Page 92. Besides, p. 173, Dr. Chwolson speaks of 2,500 years.
10. The treatise of Mási, from which this passage is extracted, was, according to Dr. Chwolson, addressed to Támithri, the Canaanite, and turns upon the literary precedence of the Canaanites and Chaldæans. I cannot pass by the improbability which a belief in the high antiquity of such writings calls forth.
11. Page 91, note. ومثل قولي لك يا طاميري اقول لجيرانك اليونانيين الذين لولا كراهتي ان اسبّ احداً لقلتُ انّهم‎ كالبهائم وان كان قد خرج فيهم افاضل فانّهم يفخرون علي اهل اقليم بابل الواحد بعد الواحد منهم ۞‎
12. For the part assigned to Agathodæmon in Arabian traditions, which are but an echo of Sabian fables, see Ibn-Abi-Oceibia, in the "Journal Asiatique," August–September, 1854, p. 186, in Dr. Sanguinetti’s translation.
13. Pp. 93, 94.
14. Ibn-Abi-Oceibia says that the Nabathæans looked upon Hermes 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 Harranians (ibid. August–Sept. 1854, pp. 185, 187, 189, 191, 192). I find in the Kitab thabacat al-úmen 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 writings of his predecessors:
    واجلّهم هو هرمس البابلي وكان في عهد سقراط الفيلسوف اليوناني وذكر ابو جعفر بن محمد بن عمر البلخي في كتاب الالوف انه هو الذي صحح كثيرا من كتب الاوايل في علم النجوم وغيره من اصناف الفلاسفة ۞‎

    This is in accordance with various legends in which Hermes is connected with Babylon. Hermes appears again in the chapter on Egypt.

15. “Journal Asiatique,” August-Sept. 1851, p. 95.
16. Wenrich, De Auct. Græc. vers. p. 93. Banqueri, Libro de Agricultura, t. 1, p. 61 of the introduction, 9, etc.
17. The termination سا‎ causes very diverse readings. I think that here is to be seen a schin, remains of the final os. M. Quatremère reads it Kalousha.
18. “Journal Asiatique,” August-Sept. 1854, p. 181.
19. Ibid. p. 185.
20. Page 19.
21. Page 96.
22. Ibn Wahshíya is often quoted as having translated the Book on Agriculture of Democrates or Democrites, surnamed الرومى‎ (Herbelot, Bibl. Orientale, at the word Democratis; Wenrich, De Auct. Græc. 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 Wahshíya of the translation of that work, rests on an error of Herbelot, who seems to have confounded the work of Kúthámí with that of Ibn-el-Awwam. (See the article Vahashíah.)
23. Page 40.
24. Page 41.
25. See Anquetil-Duperron, Livres Sacres de Zoroaster, Index, at the word Hom, 2.
26. I reserve the discussion of this point for a future essay.
27. See “Hist. gen. des Langues Semitic,” l. iii., chap. 4, sec. 1.
28. 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 سياسة‎ is found in Arabian authors much anterior to the Tartar influence, had also the form yasak.
29. Page 90.
30. For the same reason, I do not advert to the mention of China, p. 81.
31. Page 43, note.
32. Page 44, note.
33. Pp. 44, 45, note.
34. Pp. 49, 50.
35. Page 61. See Ewald, Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wiss. 1857, p. 153. The name of Adam appears to have been known among the Babylonians and the Phœnicians (See Mem. de l’Acad. t. xxiii. 2nd part, pp. 267, 268; Hippolyti (ut aiunt) Refutationes Hæresium, Duncker et Schneidewin), p. 136; but the particulars cited here are evidently Biblical.
36. In the book of Tenkelúshá 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 (ibid).
37. “Mémoire sur les Nabatéens,” p. 109 ff. “Journal des Savants,” Mars, 1857, p. 147.
38. Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissenchaften, 1857, pp. 153, 290, 291.
39. P. 27.
40. See Herbelot Bibliothèque Orientale, art. Adam; Fabricii Codex Pseudopigraphus Vet. Test. t. i. p, 1 ff.; t. ii. p. 1 ff.
41. See Hippolyti Refutationes Hæresium, ind. p. 557.
42. Page 174.
43. Dr. Chwolson himself seems to confound, at times, what relates to Adami and Adam (pp. 44, 46, note; 49, 50, note; 190). See Banqueri, i. p. 9.
44. Page 27.
45. Antiquitates, I. ii. 3.
46. The theology of the Sethians appears to have been of true Babylonian doctrine, which they sought to blend with Biblical teaching. (See Hippolyti Refutationes Hæresium, edit. Duncker et Schneidewin, p. 198 ff.)
47. See Herbelot Bibl. Orient, art. Sheith. We find traces of the Sethians even lower; see Chwolson’s Ssabier, II. p. 269.
48. Page 99, note.
49. Banqueri has noticed, I. p. 9, that Adam, Enoch, etc., are mentioned in every page of Ibn-el-Awwam.
50. “Journal Asiatique,” August-Sept., 1854, pp. 185, 187.
51. Ibn-Abi-Oceibia, “Journal Asiatique,” August-Sept., 1854, pp. 185, 189.
52. Akhnúkha must not be confounded with Anúhá. The orthography of the two words is different, and in one passage, the two names are quoted as distinct, following one another (p. 62, 95, note).
53. Page 62, note. See Ewald, Jahrbücher, 1857, p. 291. Sáma, another Babylonian sage, classed with Hanúkhá, Adámi, etc., in the book of Tenkelúshá, appears to me identical with Shem.
54. Page 43.
55. See especially Koran, xxxvii. 83 ff; lx. 4ff.
56. Page 45 ff.
57. Page 49.
58. Antiquities, I. vii. 2.
59. Philonis Judæi Opera, edit. Mangey, ii. 13. See Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, i. 436, 437 (2nd edition); Winer, Biblisthes Realwœrterbuch, i. p. 12 (3rd edition).
60. Page 49.
61. It is Dr. Chwolson himself (“Die Ssabier,” t. i., l. i., c. 13) 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 Nabathæan text.
62. The Paris Manuscript, which had been sent to the Russian minister for Dr. Chwolson’s use, was only returned to the Bibliothèque 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. Quatremère, 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.
63. Pp. 60, 90.
64. Page 91, note. The Syrian name Mardáïád (ܡܪܝ...‎) appears less ancient.
65. Pp. 60, 90.
66. Page 88.
67. Theophrasti Historia Plantarum, I. ii.
68. Pp. 51, 53, note.
69. Page 100.
70. I think that the Arabian legend of Empedocles, and the materialist writings which are ascribed to him are of Babylonian origin, and belong to this movement.