were the very gods whom the Zoroastrians held in abomination. We are forced, therefore, to give up the problem as hopeless, and rest upon what we do know. This I admit does not at first sight appear very favourable to my main argument. One may naturally object that, if the people amongst whom Abraham was reared were Sabians, mere heathen worshippers of heavenly bodies, there is all the more reason to regard his monotheism as inspired, all the less ground to admit that he borrowed it from others. Yet we must not be misled by a comparison stated in such opposing terms. The monotheism of Abraham may still lose something of its supernatural perfection, while the polytheism of the Akkadians may turn out, like many other systems, to approximate in spirit the worship of a supreme God.

One of the Kouyunjik tablets which George Smith translated and which Dr. Oppert afterwards revised, is inscribed with a hymn to the Creator Hea. The Creator is addressed under a great variety of titles and characters. He is the God of Life, the God of the Illustrious Crown, the Heart-Knower, the God Sukhab. (4.) "His name accordingly is Nibiru the Possessor." "Lord of the World is his name, (even) Father Bel." (13.) "Hea also heard." (19.) "His fifty names they pronounced; they restored his precepts." (24.) "May (the Shepherd) obey Merodach, Bel among the gods," &c. "It is evident," says Professor Sayce," that this hymn to the Creator emanated from what Sir H. Rawlinson has termed the monotheistic party among the ancient Babylonians, &c. The various deities of the popular faith are resolved into the one Supreme God, the Maker of the World and Man, who was worshipped at Babylon under the name of Bel, 'the Lord,' and Merodach, the sun-god; at Eridu under that of Hea; and at Nipur under the name of Anu. The gods of the multitude are said to be only the fifty names of the Creator. To him is ascribed the regulation of the stars, the naming of the angels, and the subjection of the subordinate demi

gods, and the marginal notes expressly state that the several titles under which the Creator is addressed on the obverse of the tablets, all belong to one and the same deity." 1 The marginal notes not only remind readers that God has many names, but they collaterally prove the great antiquity of the Akkadian monotheism: "These explanatory glosses show that even in the Assyrian time the allusions in the original text were not all intelligible without the help of a commentary."

"2

As to the religion of the Hebrew patriarch, we may find an appropriate pendant to the above in the statement of a Jewish priest and scholar, written more than eighteen hundred years ago: "He was a person of great sagacity both for understanding all things and persuading his hearers, and not mistaken in his opinions; for which he began to have higher notions of virtue than others had, and determined to renew and change the opinions all men happened to have concerning God; for he was the first that ventured to publish this notion, that there was but one God, the Creator of the Universe; and that as to other gods, if they contributed anything to the happiness of men, that each of them afforded it only according to his appointment and not by his own power. This his opinion was derived from the irregular phenomena that were visible both at land and sea, as well as those that happened to the sun and moon and all the heavenly bodies, thus, "If," said he, "these bodies had power of their own, they would certainly take care of their own regular motions; but since they do not preserve such regularity, they make it plain that so far as they co-operate to our advantage, they do it not of their own ability, but as they are subservient to him that commands them, to whom alone we ought justly to offer our honour and thanksgiving. For which doctrines, when the Chaldeans and other people of Mesopotamia raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave the country; and at the command 1 Ubi supra, p. 8o.

2 Ibid.

and by the assistance of God, he came and lived in the land of Canaan." 1

Barring the last sentence, there is nothing in this plain story to convey to one's mind aught save the oftenrepeated circumstances common to the lives of religious reformers. There is not a word here about the revelation of the great truth. Abraham "derived" his belief from a fallacious science. The apparent irregularity of natural phenomena was to him, as to unscientific minds it always has been, a proof of guiding intelligence. Of the inferior gods he speaks with caution. What share they may have in the affairs of the universe, it is not for him to say. It suffices to believe that amidst the multiplicity of inexplicable phenomena those which serve the ends of man are controlled by an Omnipotent Ruler. For all I can see to the contrary, this was not widely different from the belief of the man who composed the hymn to the Creator Hea. Nor have we any warrant to assume that Abraham was greatly in advance of the thinkers of his day. Long enough before his time, natural history, grammar, mathemathics, and astronomy were cultivated by the Chaldees or Akkadians. And it would be rash to aver that amongst a people who had made such progress in civilisation there was no "monotheistic party," no individual thinker who had ever attained to the height of speculative or philosophic reasoning reached by Abraham. The Semites. had settled amongst a people who, in respect of culture, were vastly their superiors; and although they eventually despoiled the Akkadians of their country, as they afterwards despoiled the primitive inhabitants of Assyria and the unfortunate Canaanites, they nevertheless appropriated the culture of the Chaldees; and with it, as we cannot doubt, the speculative opinions to which that culture would give rise.

1 Whiston's Josephus.

LETTER IX.

COMPARATIVE mythology brings us to the final stage of our inquiry; and as it is the most ancient of all systems of mythology, we will first turn to that of Egypt. Not that other systems were borrowed from the Egyptians; not that Egypt lent its religion to the Hebrews, or to the Greeks, or to the Phoenicians, or to the Babylonians. In some measure, no doubt, this was so. But such evidence as we have touched upon, goes to show that all the great mythologies of the world owe their birth to Asia; and that whatever is shared in common must be ascribed to primeval gentic integrity. Still, the religion of Egypt may be regarded as the mummy, as Bunsen calls it, of the original religion of Central Asia; and this estimate of it, taken in combination with its immense antiquity and its many points of contact with our own and other religions, entitle Egypt to the leading place in our attention.

It is unnecessary to go into detail about Egyptian antiquity. But as the question of priority of beliefs nearly affects our argument, a few words on the subject will not be out of place. Egyptian chronology begins with the first Pharaoh-Mena or Menes. On the far side of this, history suddenly merges into the fabulous. Before the days of Menes, Egypt was ruled by gods and demigods. They came from a foreign country-a country which is constantly referred to as the "Land of the Gods," or the "Holy Land." Both Lepsius and Dr. Brugsch agree that this Holy Land is identical with Southern Arabia. After the gods, came Menes. He, at any rate, was a human

being, for he founded Memphis, and was killed by a hippopotamus. What was his date? What the condition of Egypt when Menes was its Pharaoh ?

ever.

Most of our information upon the first of these queries is derived from Manetho, an Egyptian priest at the time of the first Ptolemy. The authority is not satisfactory, inasmuch as he is known to us through other writers only, such as Eusebius and Josephus. And the simple fact that he allows 24,900 years to the reign of the demigods may be thought a reason for suspecting his accuracy upon other matters. The date assigned by Manetho to Menes, 3887 B.C., is, however, not very wide of the mark at which modern research has placed it. Bunsen gives 3059 B.C., Lepsius 3892, Brugsch 4455, Lenormant and Mariette 5004. Nor must it be imagined, because the discrepancy is so great, that no reliance is to be placed in any estimate whatThe difficulty arises from the allowance to be made for the length of the different dynasties. It is not doubted that so many kings or so many dynasties did rule. The question is, whether they should be calculated as synchronous or consecutive. When the twentieth dynasty is reached, Egyptologers agree in assigning it to the thirteenth century B.C. Taking the various estimates into consideration, it seems impossible to place Menes later than 3000 B.C. When we ask what was the civilisation of Egypt at that period, we may hesitate to admit that its extraordinary advancement points to a previous golden age that lasted as long as Manetho declares; yet there can be little doubt that many thousands of years were needed to produce the results actually reached before Menes came to the throne. A popular writer, in whom reliance may be placed, draws a picture of Memphis as Menes himself must have beheld it. A great temple dedicated to Ptah-"the Creator God, . . . a royal court, a princely college, a thoroughly organised army, a learned body of architects and men of science, a numerous complement of lawyers, doctors, and officials in every depart

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