RECENT STRANGE ERROR AS TO THE NABATEANS. 165

the priest and reader, that he would bring the law of Moses that was given of the Lord God of Israel,' &c. And Esdras brings it and reads it (40, 41), precisely in the same manner and for the same length of time. Whoever wrote this passage of the second book of Esdras was unfortunately too little acquainted with the first. He talks of the rewriting of a law which the first book, and all other books, show to have been already extant. This empty assertion is thus proved both false and foolish; we have, ever and anon, the literature of some ancient nation brought forward to ruin the chronology of the Bible, or its theories of man and his origin; but these vaunted discourses, heralded with much pomp and learning, vanish necessarily into dreams and smoke. Chaldea, Egypt, India, and China have been all subpoenaed in vain; and the Bible, the invincible bulwark of life and immortality, the inexhaustible treasury of spiritual fact, remains firm, fresh, young, unscathed, unfractured as ever, the oldest and the newest book in the world.

The latest attempt of this kind is not even yet sent to its quietus. Certain Russian, German, and French very learned philologists have been now for some years laboriously engaged on a discovery which they imagine themselves to have made. A M. Chwolsow, a Russian, has announced the discovery of a Chaldean work on The Agriculture of the Nabateans by a certain ancient Kuthami. This Kuthami is declared to be a Nabatean (that is, according to Chwolsow, a Chaldean author), who gives glimpses of things of much earlier date than the chronology of Moses. Adami is indeed recognised as Adam considerably down in the chronological list of the Nabateans. A M. Quatremeres, a Frenchman, and a number of German learned men have been profoundly at work prosecuting enquiries into this wonderful work, when at length M. Renan, a Frenchman, has somewhat spoiled this learned hypothesis by proving that the book is but of the second age of the Christian era, and that any references that it has to a vast antiquity are thin and baseless, as light vernal mist.

In fact, had M. Renan himself simply referred to a plain passage in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews,' B.I. xii. 4, he might at once have demonstrated that these profound literati might have saved themselves the whole of their labours. Speaking of Ishmael, he says, ' When the lad was grown up he married a wife, by birth an Egyptian, from whom his mother was herself originally derived. Of this wife were born to Ishmael twelve sons, Nabaioth, Kedar, Abdeel, Mabsam, Idumas, Masmaos, Masaos, Chodad, Theman, Jetur, Naphesus, Cadmas. These inhabited all the country from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, and called it Nabatene. They are an Arabian nation, and name their tribes from these, both because of their own virtue, and because of the divinity of their father Abraham.' Thus, the Nabateans are simply the Arabians, as Diodorus Siculus also shows in his nineteenth book, sixth chapter, and the work of Kuthami, is simply and bonâ fide an Arabian original, and not a translation from the Chaldean at all. Thus, on an Arabian work of the second century of Christianity have these learned men been building, much as the Chaldeans built the tower of confusion, with a top intended, if not to reach Heaven, at least far higher than Moses and his Anthropology.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SUPERNATURAL OF THE APOCRYPHA.

IF

If anyone think these things incredible, let him keep his opinions to
himself, and not contradict those who, by such events, are incited to
the study of virtue.

JOSEPHUS.

F we cannot ascribe the same authority to the whole of the books of the Apocrypha as we can to those of the canonical books of the Old Testament, the same spirit of faith in the supernatural runs through them, and many of the miraculous events related, are corroborated by other writers, as Josephus and Philo-Judæus. Many of the passages are authenticated by the quotation of them by our Saviour. Such are those passages in the first chapter of the second book of Esdras, which are quoted so expressly and almost verbatim by Christ in Matthew xxiii. 'I gathered you together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings' (30). I sent unto you my servants, the prophets, whom ye have taken and slain, and torn their bodies in pieces, whose blood I will require at your hands saith the Lord' (32). Thus saith the Almighty, Your house is left desolate' (33). Compare Matthew xxiii. 34, 37, 38.

Next to the Bible some of the finest writing in the world is to be found in the Apocrypha, a sufficient proof of the Divine inspiration of very much of these books. It is very remarkable that to the Bible, a book which so many would persuade us had little or no Divine authority, we must go for the most solemn and splendid poetry, the most noble

ethics, the most sublime imagery, the most profound maxims of wisdom and rules of life, and the most clear and correct narration of ancient events. Much of the same character rests on the pages of the Apocrypha. What a splendid dramatic incident is that with which the third chapter of Esdras opens, when Darius had given a great feast to all his governors, captains, and lieutenants that were under him from India to Ethiopia, of a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, and Darius retiring to his bed could not sleep. And he called three young men of his body guard to entertain him; and they propounded to him the three questions of the comparative power of wine, kings, and women. And when he had called all his governors and princes of Media and Persia, he had these three postulates argued by the three young men, and the palm was bestowed on Zorobabel, who pronounced for women, and above them for the truth. What a proud scene is that, when the people shouted, and the young man claimed as his reward the king's promise to rebuild Jerusalem! and Darius stood up and kissed him, and wrote letters for him unto all the treasurers, and lieutenants, and captains, and governors to conduct safely on their way, both him and all those who should go with him to build Jerusalem.' There is nothing finer in all history, and Josephus, who confirms the occurrence as a fact, luxuriates in it in his Antiquities.'

Many of the visions and prophetic passages are worthy of a place in any canonical book. Such is that of the Son of God (Esdras ii. 42-47). 'I, Esdras, saw upon the Mount Sion a great people, whom I could not number, and they all praised the Lord with songs. And in the midst of them there was a young man of a high stature, taller than all the rest, and upon every one of their heads he set crowns, and was more exalted, which I marvelled at greatly. So I asked the angel, and said, Sir, what are these? And he answered and said unto me, These be they that have put off the mortal clothing, and put on the immortal, and have confessed the name of God; now are they crowned, and receive

RIDICULE OF IDOLS IN THE APOCRYPHA.

169

palms. Then said I unto the angel, What young person is it that crowneth them, and giveth them palms in their hands? And he answered and said unto me, It is the Son of God, whom they have confessed in the world.'

The image of a woman in a field lamenting for her son, and refusing to be comforted, as shown him by Uriel, and which suddenly changes into a city, Jerusalem, which (in truth, lamented for her son, who should come and be slain), is very fine.

6

In the Old Testament, there are many exquisite pieces of ridicule of idols, but there is nothing more admirable than the description of the origin of idolatry in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the Wisdom of Solomon. The elements are shown to have seduced some to forget God in the works of his hands; others, more stupid, took the very refuse amongst those which served to no use, being a crooked piece of wood, and full of knots, and carved it into a god;' others, lamenting a dead son, or desiring to flatter a king, employed the highest sculptors, and so the multitude, allured by the grace of the work, took him for a god who but a little before was but honoured as a man.' The prominent art of the Greeks seems glanced at here. In Baruch, again, the idols are overwhelmed with satire. 'Yet cannot these gods save themselves from rust and moths, though they be covered with purple raiment. Men wipe their faces, because of the dust of the temples, when there is much upon them; and he that cannot put to death one that offendeth him, holdeth a sceptre as though he were a judge of the country. He hath also in his right hand a dagger and an axe, but cannot deliver himself from war and thieves' (vi. 12-15).

The Book of Tobit is one of the most interesting books of antiquity. In it, we have families of the exiled Jews living in that Nineveh which has been in our time dug out of its ruins, in which it was buried soon after by Nebuchadnezzar. Nineveh, Babylon, and the unfolding of the records of Egypt, how have they of late years confirmed the historic truth of