Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/70

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54
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.

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.[1]

Akhnúkha (اخنوخا‎) or Hánúkhá (خنوخا‎‎)[2] is Enoch.[3] Ibn-Abi-Oceibia, drawing from Sabian sources, calls Enoch (اخنوخ‎‎).[4] We know the part of “inventor” which this patriarch filled of old. The Arabs, also following these Sabian traditions, identify him with Hermes.[5] 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),[6] another of

  1. See Herbelot Bibl. Orient, art. Sheith. We find traces of the Sethians even lower; see Chwolson’s Ssabier, II. p. 269.
  2. Page 99, note.
  3. Banqueri has noticed, I. p. 9, that Adam, Enoch, etc., are mentioned in every page of Ibn-el-Awwam.
  4. “Journal Asiatique,” August-Sept., 1854, pp. 185, 187.
  5. Ibn-Abi-Oceibia, “Journal Asiatique,” August-Sept., 1854, pp. 185, 189.
  6. 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).