The names of the Babylonian kings furnished by Nabathæan writings cause at first the greatest astonishment. Here are the seventeen names of kings which I have gathered from Dr. Chwolson: Abéd-Fergílá, Bédiná, Salbamá, Harmáti, Hináfa, Kamash, Marináta, Númrúda, Kerúsáni, Kijámá, Riccána, Sahá, Shámajá, Shémúta, Súsikyá, Thibátána, Zahmuna. Only one of these names positively corresponds with those known to us elsewhere, and that is Númrúda, which, as we have seen, carries us back to a fabulous antiquity. Another name, that of Kerúsáni, may possibly, I think, correspond with pre-historical traditions. A hero, common to the literature of the Vedas, and in the Zend-Avesta, and who therefore may be carried back to ancient Arian mythology, is Kerúsaní, who, like Nimrod,
Gnosticism. He thinks (and a similar idea had already occurred to me) that Jesus Christ is concealed under the name of Azada; that Saturn arrayed in black (Chwolson, pp. 115, 135) is the God of the Jews, the Sathaneal of the Anti-Christian gnostics; that the pretended Babylonian anchorites (Chwolson, p. 159) are Christian monks; so that the antipathy of the Gnostics to the Christians betrays itself in many places.
