meaning a hand; according therefore to this deduction the must be placed for the, which indeed sometimes occurs in MSS., and by the omission of, the word must suffer Syncope, which necessarily induces improbability, and in fact begs the question. This derivation seems to have been adopted from the supposed coincidence of Abraham and Zerdusht; which appears in a great degree to be founded upon the circumstance of Abraham leaving Ur of the Chaldees, and of his father's name being 3 or fire, according to one Muhhammedan tradition. But as the Greek writers inform us, that he was also called Zapáns, Bryant is perfectly inconsistent with his own arbitrary system in objecting to the term Zerdusht; especially as he oftentimes owns the propensity of the Greeks to alter words, and to accommodate them to their own terminations; and there is as much, if not greater, difference between Ormuzd and Oromasdes, Aherman and Arimanius, Mihr and Mithras, Ardeshir and Artaxerxes, which is the Septuagint version of Ahasuerus, &c., as between the words in debate: but he is decidedly of opinion, that the rites came from the Chaldeans to the Persians. Could it however be proved, that the Babylonian priests had a sacred language, like those of India, of Egypt and of Persia, (as appears from the inscriptions at Istakhar,) and could it be demonstrated, that that tongue had an affinity with the Sanskrita, as the others had, we could easily explain the meaning of the terms Zoroaster and Zarades. On etymological deductions however I place little reliance, excepting when there appears to be either authority or strong probability to recommend them. But if we have recourse to the Sanskrita, which is a tongue" of the most unfathomable antiquity," we may rest certain, that the first syllable is Soora or Soorya the Sun: now if we compound this with Truta it will imply the science of the Sun: if however we adopt a derivative of the root sram to perform religious austerities, whence the order of the priesthood is called asrama, we shall have a direct allusion to the sacerdotal office of Zoroaster, which will also be the case, if we compound Soorya the Sun with the participle of the verb sri to worship, to serve. And great probability arises in favor of the latter, because if we compound Soora the Sun with dasa a servant, we have precisely the same signification, and the Greek Zagáns and this is also the Persian, since in some MSS., it is written ; and ; but every etymolo, gical conjecture is left without the least reserve to the discretion : VOL. VII. NO. XIII. P of the reader however if this deduction be the true, we may suppose that the Greeks had authority for interpreting it άorpoθότης. St. John's Coll. Cam. 30th Jan. 1813. D. G. WAIT. INSCRIPTIONS FOUND AT ANCIENT SAGUNTUM. WE E have been favored with the following additional Inscriptions lately brought into this country, and hope to be able to give some explanation of them in a future number. The following rules are collected from some of the most distinguished Spanish antiquaries. 1. The characters both of the Celtiberians, and of the Turdetani, are to be chiefly referred to the most ancient Greek and Etruscan. 2. There are several letters admitted to be doubtful. 3. There are double letters, which frequently recur. 4. The vowels are sometimes expressed, but often are to be supplied, 5. Words are seldom written at full length. No. 14. SERGIAE M-F THEOMNESTVSET-LAIS ET DIDYME LIBERTI No. 15. STEAL IVSTOAI C NLE PII VRBANOTRIB SORTITOP PROSPECTUS CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS ON BOOKS ANCIENT AND MODERN. No. 16, just published. CONTAINING various dates in the Chronicon of Eusebius vindicated against the moderns. Its agreement with Herodotus, Josephus, and Syncellus proved in others which have been doubted. Syncellus defended concerning the usurpation of Babylon by Nabopolasar against the corruption of his words by Usher, and the accusation of their being spurious by Vignoles. Jerom vindicated against Scaliger concerning the book of Judith. The dates and facts in the Greek Judith shown to be in harmony with profane history and chronology, and more accurate than the Latin copy in opposition to Prideaux and Jackson. The book as authentic as the Maccabees. This publication was begun in 1781, and continued occasionally, as the author's leisure permitted, down to the present No. 16. Its object was to convey to the public the remarks of an individual, not connected with any of the too partial or the prejudiced parties in literature, upon such new books of credit, as engaged the notice of the author. The favorable reception of the first numbers, which are now out of print, induced him to enlarge his plan in one respect, that is, by including in it ancient books as well as modern ones, which related to the same subject, but at the same time to contract it in another respect, by confining himself to such books only, as tended to illustrate the Jewish scriptures, more particularly in regard to the connexion of the historic events there with the profane histories and chronology of the same ages. For the author could not but allow, that notwithstanding all the endeavours of many learned men, there still remained so much incoherence in their different accounts of the kings of Assyria, mentioned in Scripture, and of such other historic subjects, as gave but too much room for Collins and Bolingbroke to accuse the Old Testament of so great discordancy with profane history, as tended to lessen its credit in point of veracity. It became therefore a subject of inquiry, whence this discordancy arose; and the author thought, that he saw a plain road, which might be followed through all the intricacies and difficulties with which different moderns had perplexed and obscured it, and which would prove, that neither Scripture nor profane history were to be accused of departing from truth; for those apparent discordances had arisen solely from the historic accounts preserved in ancient books having not been put together and arranged by the moderns with sufficient accuracy in point of history and chronology, nor indeed even the words of the ancients always explained in their right senses. The truth of these accusations against modern commentators on Scripture and others has been proved in the above 16 Numbers; and in consequence it appears, that when such errors are removed, it will be found, that the Jewish Scriptures and profane history, do actually agree together in the most perfect harmony, so that the pretended discordancy alleged against Scripture has not the least good foundation, nor yet indeed complaints against the insufficiency of profane history, but that all the apparent difficulties have arisen from the want of attention, and the errors of modern compilers of ancient history and chronology. The reasoning and proofs contained in the text are confirmed and rendered more obvious by several tables of history and chronology. Dr. Priestly's Defences of Unitarianism afforded an occasion to extend similar remarks and accusations to Christian ages, with respect to the errors committed by the modern compilers of that mode of Christianity; this however caused a little intricacy in the publication of some of the above 16 numbers, in order that the two subjects might not be intermixed when bound up in volumes, although intermixed in the above numbers when published separately; and due attention to the directions given in each No. concerning the volume to which it belongs, the pages and signatures in it, will easily point out the manner how they ought to be bound up for the above purpose of not intermixing those subjects in the order of reading, although intermixed in the order of publication. The whole when completed will form 5 volumes 8vo. Subjects already discussed in the above 16 Numbers. The well-known long duration of an Assyrian Empire adopted by some ancients in comparison of the shorter historic one assigned by Herodotus, is shown to be nothing more than Assyrian history accommodated to a favorite astronomic period of the ancient orientals or magnus annus, applied by them here to the purpose of astrology relative to the duration of kingdoms, just as, at other times, they ascertained by astrology the duration of individuals. This period contained 1460 years, being the time elapsed before the new year's day of a retrograde solar year of 365 days only will perform a complete revolution backward through the Zodiac, and begin again on the same day as a solar year intercalated with 1 day in every 4 years; proofs of these facts may be seen in Syncellus. At other times, and by others, the same period of 1460 was applied to the duration of the Universe, and predicted for the time of its destruction either by a flood or fire, as may be proved from Censorinus. The modern Hindoos have preserved a relic of the same ancient oriental practice of including and confining historic events within arbitrary astrologic periods. Their whole history is thus included in and confined by different multiples of a period of 432,000 years formed by multiplying the 36,000 years, in which the equinoxes were reputed to complete a revolution backward, by the 12 Signs of the Zodiac through which they revolve. That Assyrian period of 1460 was afterwards shortened by the same Greek Chronologers in the age of Alexander, who shortened the antiquity of the Trojan war, as connected with the Assyrian king there by the Assyrians themselves, and named Teutamus; thus it was reduced to 1300 or 1360, either 100 or 160 years being taken away from the antiquity of both, and this by the omission of 4 whole reigns of 162 years after the reign of Teutamus and the reputed capture of Troy in that reign. The original perfect list of Assyrian kings is found in Syncellus, the corrupted and shortened list in Eusebius, as copied by him from the reduced chronology of Assyria and Greece, adopted by those later Greeks. Hence arose the different accounts in ancient authors of the duration of the Assyrian kingdom &c. &c. The antiquity and accuracy of the æra of Nabonassar vindicated against the accusations of errors in it by Jackson, and proved to have been not compiled by Ptolemy, but to have been in use as early as by Hipparchus. The mode of reckoning by it mistaken by Prideaux, Jackson, and Bowyer. The observations of the autumnal equinoxes by Hipparchus, proved to have been all made one year later than modern astronomers pretend, therefore are not subject to so much error as astronomers have imputed to them, who have mistaken the meaning of one Greek phrase by Hipparchus from the time of Copernicus down to that of Delalande, and hence accused Hipparchus without good foundation. The Assyrian kings mentioned in Scripture proved to have been the same persons as those enumerated by Ctesias in Diodorus, but under different names; the number of them and the duration of their reigns are also the very same, and the last three from Esarchaddon the same as the three in the æra of Nabonasar before the destruction of Niniveh by Cyaxares. They were all Medes by nation and kings of Assyria, by the conquest of Assyria under Arbaces. Senacherib was the first of them, who dwelt at Niniveh instead of Ecbatana, and the Jarib mentioned in Hosea was the same as Arbaces, who was thus cotemporary with Jonah 40 years before the 1st Olympiad; all other dates by ancient or modern chronologers being proved to be erroneous, and thus the Scriptural accounts of those Assyrian kings are found to be in harmony with profane history and chronology. The account of these Median kings over Assyria, by Eusebius, shown to be in general accurate, but the nature of it to have been intirely mistaken by Scaliger, Petavius, Marsham, and all other writers, &c. &c. FOREIGN LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION. A New Journal in Modern Greek has been established in Vienna. It is the Work of the most learned Greeks in Vienna, Paris, Venice, and Constantinople. The Editor is Demetrios Alexandrides, author of a Turkish Dictionary, and of a Greek Grammar. A Grammar of the Icelandic Language has been published at Copenha gen by M. Rask. This was the language generally spoken in Scandinavia |