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BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
in the first centuries of our era.[1] The Jews displayed a literary activity which, beyond doubt, did not remain shut up in the bosom of their communities. The Gnostic sects, Pérates, Elchasaïtes, etc., developed themselves with a boldness and liberty which mark at least an awakened intellect. The wrestling of the Syrian Christians—St. Ephraim, the Syrian,[2] for instance—against the Chaldæans, 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 genethliacs, 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, Nabúriánus, Sudínus, Séleucus, see Strabo (XVI. i. 6); Pliny (VI. xxx. 6); the Kitáb el-fihrist (Zeitschrift der Morgenl. Gesellschaft, 1859, p. 628); the work before cited of Saïd (pp. 21-22 of the MS. of M. Schefer). See also Stanley, Histoire de la Philosophie Orient., p. 14 ff. Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophiæ, I. p. 130 ff. Unfortunately the dates put us completely at fault here.
- ↑ Bp. Jeremy Taylor hence calls Ephraim, the Syrian, the Destruction of Heresies.—Translator’s note.
