Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/81

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BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
65

CHAPTER III.

The author of “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” was acquainted with Greek science; an echo of the Bible, or at the very least, of Jewish belief, is found in his writings; he allows full authority to the apocryphal writings ascribed to Hebrew patriarchs; he believes in those half-trickish writings which pretended to represent the science of the Indians, Egyptians, and Persians, in the first centuries of our era; and he admits Hermes and Agathedæmon amongst Babylonian sages. The date of the “Nabathæan Agriculture,” at least a parte ante is from these facts sufficiently determined. It remains now to be seen whether we do not possess other works, the bringing of which into juxtaposition may