Whatever we may think of the nomenclature thus advocated by Dr. Haug, we must acknowledge in the fullest manner his great merit in separating for the first time the more ancient from the more modern parts of the Zend-Avesta. Though the existence of different dialects in the ancient texts was pointed out by Spiegel, and although the metrical portions of the Yasna had been clearly marked by Westergaard, it is nevertheless Haug's great achievement to have extracted these early relics, to have collected them, and to have attempted a complete translation of them, as far as such an attempt could be carried out at the present moment. His edition of the Gâthâs—for this is the name of the ancient metrical portions—marks an epoch in the history of Zend scholarship, and the importance of the recovery of these genuine relics of Zoroaster's religion has been well brought out by Bunsen in the least known of his books, 'Gott in der Geschichte.' We by no means think that the translations here offered by Dr. Haug are final. We hope, on the contrary, that he will go on with the work he has so well begun, and that he will not rest till he has removed every dark speck that still covers the image of Zoroaster's primitive faith. Many of the passages as translated by him are as clear as daylight, and carry conviction by their very clearness. Others, however, are obscure, hazy, meaningless. We feel that they must have been intended for something else, something more definite and forcible, though we cannot tell what to do with the words as they stand. Sense, after all, is the great test of translation. We must feel convinced that there was good sense in these ancient poems, otherwise mankind would not have taken the trouble to preserve them; and if we cannot discover good sense in them, it must be either our fault, or the words as we now read them were not the words uttered by the ancient prophets of the world. The following are a few specimens of Dr. Haug's translations, in which the reader will easily discover the different hues of certainty and uncertainty, of sense and mere verbiage:

This is a short specimen of the earliest portion of the Zend-Avesta. The following is an account of one of the latest, the so-called Ormuzd Yasht:

Ahuramazda says then further:

Whether the striking coincidence between one of the suggested names of Ahuramazda, namely, 'I am who I am,' and the explanation of the name Jehova, Exodus iii. 14, 'I am that I am,' is accidental or not, must depend on the age that can be assigned to the Ormuzd Yasht. The chronological arrangement, however, of the various portions of the Zend-Avesta is as yet merely tentative, and these questions must remain for future consideration. Dr. Haug points out other similarities between the doctrines of Zoroaster and the Old and New Testaments. 'The Zoroastrian religion,' he writes, 'exhibits a very close affinity to, or rather identity with, several important doctrines of the Mosaic religion and Christianity, such as the personality and attributes of the devil, and the resurrection of the dead.' Neither of these doctrines, however, would seem to be characteristic of the Old or New Testament, and the resurrection of the dead is certainly to be found by implication only, and is nowhere distinctly asserted, in the religious books of Moses.

There are other points on which we should join issue with Dr. Haug—as, for instance, when, on page 17, he calls the Zend the elder sister of Sanskrit. This seems to us in the very teeth of the evidence so carefully brought together by himself in his Zend grammar. If he means the modern Sanskrit, as distinguished from the Vedic, his statement would be right to some extent; but even thus, it would be easy to show many grammatical forms in the later Sanskrit more primitive than their corresponding forms in Zend. These, however, are minor points compared with the great results of his labours which Dr. Haug has brought together in these four Essays; and we feel certain that all who are interested in the study of ancient language and ancient religion will look forward with the greatest expectations to Dr. Haug's continued investigations of the language, the literature, the ceremonial, and the religion of the descendants of Zoroaster.

December, 1862.

VI.

PROGRESS OF ZEND SCHOLARSHIP.[47]

here are certain branches of philological research which seem to be constantly changing, shifting, and, we hope, progressing. After the key to the interpretation of ancient inscriptions has been found, it by no means follows that every word can at once be definitely explained, or every sentence correctly construed. Thus it happens that the same hieroglyphic or cuneiform text is rendered differently by different scholars; nay, that the same scholar proposes a new rendering not many years after his first attempt at a translation has been published. And what applies to the decipherment of inscriptions applies with equal force to the translation of ancient texts. A translation of the hymns of the Veda, or of the Zend-Avesta, and, we may add, of the Old Testament too, requires exactly the same process as the deciphering of an inscription. The only safe way of finding the real meaning of words in the sacred texts of the Brahmans, the Zoroastrians, or the Jews, is to compare every passage in which the same word occurs, and to look for a meaning that is equally applicable to all, and can at the same time be defended on grammatical and etymological grounds. This is no doubt a tedious process, nor can it be free from uncertainty; but it is an uncertainty inherent in the subject itself, for which it would be unfair to blame those by whose genius and perseverance so much light has been shed on the darkest pages of ancient history. To those who are not acquainted with the efforts by which Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen, and Rawlinson unravelled the inscriptions of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, it may seem inexplicable, for instance, how an inscription which at one time was supposed to confirm the statement, known from Herodotus, that Darius obtained the sovereignty of Persia by the neighing of his horse, should now yield so very different a meaning. Herodotus relates that after the assassination of Smerdis the six conspirators agreed to confer the royal dignity on him whose horse should neigh first at sunrise. The horse of Darius neighed first, and he was accordingly elected king of Persia. After his election, Herodotus states that Darius erected a stone monument containing the figure of a horseman, with the following inscription: 'Darius, the son of Hystaspes, obtained the kingdom of the Persians by the virtue of his horse (giving its name), and of Oibareus, his groom.' Lassen translated one of the cuneiform inscriptions, copied originally by Niebuhr from a huge slab built in the southern wall of the great platform at Persepolis, in the following manner: 'Auramazdis magnus est. Is maximus est deorum. Ipse Darium regem constituit, benevolens imperium obtulit. Ex voluntate Auramazdis Darius rex sum. Generosus sum Darius rex hujus regionis Persicæ; hanc mihi Auramazdis obtulit "hoc pomœrio ope equi (Choaspis) claræ virtutis."' This translation was published in 1844, and the arguments by which Lassen supported it, in the sixth volume of the 'Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes,' may be read with interest and advantage even now when we know that this eminent scholar was mistaken in his analysis. The first step towards a more correct translation was made by Professor Holtzmann, who in 1845 pointed out that Smerdis was murdered at Susa, not at Persepolis; and that only six days later Darius was elected king of Persia, which happened again at Susa, and not at Persepolis. The monument, therefore, which Darius erected in the προἁστειον, or suburb, in the place where the fortunate event which led to his elevation occurred, and the inscription recording the event in loco, could not well be looked for at Persepolis. But far more important was the evidence derived from a more careful analysis of the words of the inscription itself. Niba, which Lassen translated as pomœrium, occurs in three other places, where it certainly cannot mean suburb. It seems to be an adjective meaning splendid, beautiful. Besides, nibâ is a nominative singular in the feminine, and so is the pronoun hyâ which precedes, and the two words which follow it—uvaspâ and umartiyâ. Professor Holtzmann translated therefore the same sentence which Professor Lassen had rendered by 'hoc pomœrio ope equi (Choaspis) claræ virtutis,' by 'quæ nitida, herbosa, celebris est,' a translation which is in the main correct, and has been adopted afterwards both by Sir H. Rawlinson and M. Oppert. Sir H. Rawlinson translates the whole passage as follows: 'This province of Persia which Ormazd has granted to me, which is illustrious, abounding in good horses, producing good men.' Thus vanished the horse of Darius, and the curious confirmation which the cuneiform inscription was at one time supposed to lend to the Persian legend recorded by Herodotus.

It would be easy to point out many passages of this kind, and to use them in order to throw discredit on the whole method by which these and other inscriptions have lately been deciphered. It would not require any great display of forensic or parliamentary eloquence, to convince the public at large, by means of such evidence, that all the labours of Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen, and Rawlinson had been in vain, and to lay down once for all the general principle that the original meaning of inscriptions written in a dead language, of which the tradition is once lost, can never be recovered. Fortunately, questions of this kind are not settled by eloquent pleading or by the votes of majorities, but, on the contrary, by the independent judgment of the few who are competent to judge. The fact that different scholars should differ in their interpretations, or that the same scholars should reject his former translation, and adopt a new one that possibly may have to be surrendered again as soon as new light can be thrown on points hitherto doubtful and obscure—all this, which in the hands of those who argue for victory and not for truth, constitutes so formidable a weapon, and appeals so strongly to the prejudices of the many, produces very little effect on the minds of those who understand the reason of these changes, and to whom each new change represents but a new step in advance in the discovery of truth.

Nor should the fact be overlooked that, if there seems to be less change in the translation of the books of the Old Testament for instance, or of Homer, it is due in a great measure to the absence of that critical exactness at which the decipherers of ancient inscriptions and the translators of the Veda and Zend-Avesta aim in rendering each word that comes before them. If we compared the translation of the Septuagint with the authorised version of the Old Testament, we should occasionally find discrepancies nearly as startling as any that can be found in the different translations of the cuneiform inscriptions, or of the Veda and Zend-Avesta. In the Book of Job, the Vulgate translates the exhortation of Job's wife by 'Bless God and die;' the English version by 'Curse God and die;' the Septuagint by 'Say some word to the Lord and die.' Though, at the time when the Seventy translated the Old Testament, Hebrew could hardly be called a dead language, yet there were then many of its words the original meaning of which even the most learned rabbi would have had great difficulty in defining with real accuracy. The meaning of words changes imperceptibly and irresistibly. Even where there is a literature, and a printed literature like that of modern Europe, four or five centuries work such a change that few even of the most learned divines in England would find it easy to read and to understand accurately a theological treatise written in English four hundred years ago. The same happened, and happened to a far greater extent, in ancient languages. Nor was the sacred character attributed to certain writings any safeguard. On the contrary, greater violence is done by successive interpreters to sacred writings than to any other relics of ancient literature. Ideas grow and change, yet each generation tries to find its own ideas reflected in the sacred pages of their early prophets, and, in addition to the ordinary influences which blur and obscure the sharp features of old words, artificial influences are here at work distorting the natural expression of words which have been invested with a sacred authority. Passages in the Veda or Zend-Avesta which do not bear on religious or philosophical doctrines are generally explained simply and naturally, even by the latest of native commentators. But as soon as any word or sentence can be so turned as to support a doctrine, however modern, or a precept, however irrational, the simplest phrases are tortured and mangled till at last they are made to yield their assent to ideas the most foreign to the minds of the authors of the Veda and Zend-Avesta.

To those who take an interest in these matters we may recommend a small Essay lately published by the Rev. R. G. S. Browne—the 'Mosaic Cosmogony'—in which the author endeavours to establish a literal translation of the first chapter of Genesis. Touching the first verb that occurs in the Bible, he writes: 'What is the meaning or scope of the Hebrew verb, in our authorised version, rendered by "created?" To English ears and understandings the sound comes naturally, and by long use irresistibly, as the representation of an ex nihilo creation. But, in the teeth of all the Rabbinical and Cabbalistic fancies of Jewish commentators, and with reverential deference to modern criticism on the Hebrew Bible, it is not so. R. D. Kimchi, in his endeavour to ascertain the shades of difference existing between the terms used in the Mosaic cosmogony, has assumed that our Hebrew verb barâ has the full signification of ex nihilo creavit. Our own Castell, a profound and self-denying scholar has entertained the same groundless notion. And even our illustrious Bryan Walton was not inaccessible to this oblique ray of Rabbinical or ignis fatuus.'

Mr. Browne then proceeds to quote Gesenius, who gives as the primary meaning of barâ, he cut, cut out, carved, planed down, polished; and he refers to Lee, who characterizes it as a silly theory that barâ meant to create ex nihilo. In Joshua xvii. 15 and 18, the same verb is used in the sense of cutting down trees; in Psalm civ. 30 it is translated by 'Thou renewest the face of the earth.' In Arabic, too, according to Lane, barâ means properly, though not always, to create out of pre-existing matter. All this shows that in the verb barâ, as in the Sanskrit tvaksh or taksh, there is no trace of the meaning assigned to it by later scholars, of a creation out of nothing. That idea in its definiteness was a modern idea, most likely called forth by the contact between Jews and Greeks at Alexandria. It was probably in contradistinction to the Greek notion of matter as co-eternal with the Creator, that the Jews, to whom Jehovah was all in all, asserted, for the first time deliberately, that God had made all things out of nothing. This became afterwards the received and orthodox view of Jewish and Christian divines, though the verb barâ, so far from lending any support to this theory, would rather show that, in the minds of those whom Moses addressed and whose language he spoke, it could only have called forth the simple conception of fashioning or arranging—if, indeed, it called forth any more definite conception than the general and vague one conveyed by the ποιεῖν of the Septuagint. To find out how the words of the Old Testament were understood by those to whom they were originally addressed is a task attempted by very few interpreters of the Bible. The great majority of readers transfer without hesitation the ideas which they connect with words as used in the nineteenth century to the mind of Moses or his contemporaries, forgetting altogether the distance which divides their language and their thoughts from the thoughts and language of the wandering tribes of Israel.

How many words, again, there are in Homer which have indeed a traditional interpretation, as given by our dictionaries and commentaries, but the exact purport of which is completely lost, is best known to Greek scholars. It is easy enough to translate πολἑμοιο γἑφυραι by the bridges of war, but what Homer really meant by these γἑφυραι has never been explained. It is extremely doubtful whether bridges, in our sense of the word, were known at all at the time of Homer; and even if it could be proved that Homer used γἑφυραι in the sense of a dam, the etymology, i. e., the earliest history of the word, would still remain obscure and doubtful. It is easy, again, to see that ἱερὁς in Greek means something like the English sacred. But how, if it did so, the same adjective could likewise be applied to a fish or to a chariot, is a question which, if it is to be answered at all, can only be answered by an etymological analysis of the word.[48] To say that sacred may mean marvellous, and therefore big, is saying nothing, particularly as Homer does not speak of catching big fish, but of catching fish in general.

These considerations—which might be carried much further, but which, we are afraid, have carried us away too far from our original subject—were suggested to us while reading a lecture lately published by Dr. Haug, and originally delivered by him at Bombay, in 1864, before an almost exclusively Parsi audience. In that lecture Dr. Haug gives a new translation of ten short paragraphs of the Zend-Avesta, which he had explained and translated in his 'Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsees,' published in 1862. To an ordinary reader the difference between the two translations, published within the space of two years, might certainly be perplexing, and calculated to shake his faith in the soundness of a method that can lead to such varying results. Nor can it be denied that, if scholars who are engaged in these researches are bent on representing their last translation as final and as admitting of no further improvement, the public has a right to remind them that 'finality' is as dangerous a thing in scholarship as in politics. Considering the difficulty of translating the pages of the Zend-Avesta, we can never hope to have every sentence of it rendered into clear and intelligible English. Those who for the first time reduced the sacred traditions of the Zoroastrians to writing were separated by more than a thousand years from the time of their original composition. After that came all the vicissitudes to which manuscripts are exposed during the process of being copied by more or less ignorant scribes. The most ancient MSS. of the Zend-Avesta date from the beginning of the fourteenth century. It is true there is an early translation of the Zend-Avesta, the Pehlevi translation, and a later one in Sanskrit by Neriosengh. But the Pehlevi translation, which was made under the auspices of the Sassanian kings of Persia, served only to show how completely the literal and grammatical meaning of the Zend-Avesta was lost even at that time, in the third century after Christ; while the Sanskrit translation was clearly made, not from the original, but from the Pehlevi. It is true, also, that even in more modern times the Parsis of Bombay were able to give to Anquetil Duperron and other Europeans what they considered as a translation of the Zend-Avesta in modern Persian. But a scholar like Burnouf, who endeavoured for the first time to give an account of every word in the Zend text, to explain each grammatical termination, to parse every sentence, and to establish the true meaning of each term by an etymological analysis and by a comparison of cognate words in Sanskrit, was able to derive but scant assistance from these traditional translations. Professor Spiegel, to whom we owe a complete edition and translation of the Zend-Avesta, and who has devoted the whole of his life to the elucidation of the Zoroastrian religion, attributes a higher value to the tradition of the Parsis than Dr. Haug. But he also is obliged to admit that he could ascribe no greater authority to these traditional translations and glosses than a Biblical scholar might allow to Rabbinical commentaries. All scholars are agreed in fact on this, that whether the tradition be right or wrong, it requires in either case to be confirmed by an independent grammatical and etymological analysis of the original text. Such an analysis is no doubt as liable to error as the traditional translation itself, but it possesses this advantage, that it gives reasons for every word that has to be translated, and for every sentence that has to be construed. It is an excellent discipline to the mind even where the results at which we arrive are doubtful or erroneous, and it has imparted to these studies a scientific value and general interest which they could not otherwise have acquired.

We shall give a few specimens of the translations proposed by different scholars of one or two verses of the Zend-Avesta. We cannot here enter into the grammatical arguments by which each of these translations is supported. We only wish to show what is the present state of Zend scholarship, and though we would by no means disguise the fact of its somewhat chaotic character, yet we do not hesitate to affirm that, in spite of the conflict of the opinions of different scholars, and in spite of the fluctuation of systems apparently opposed to each other, progress may be reported, and a firm hope expressed that the essential doctrines of one of the earliest forms of religion may in time be recovered and placed before us in their original purity and simplicity. We begin with the Pehlevi translation of a passage in Yasna, 45:

Professor Spiegel, in 1859, translated the same passage, of which the Pehlevi is a running commentary rather than a literal rendering, as follows:

Next follows the translation of the passage as published by Dr. Haug in 1862:

The same scholar, in 1865, translates the same passage somewhat differently:

The principal difficulty in this paragraph consists in the word which Dr. Haug translated by duality, viz. dûm, and which he identifies with Sanskrit dvam, i. e. dvandvam, pair. Such a word, as far as we are aware, does not occur again in the Zend-Avesta, and hence it is not likely that the uncertainty attaching to its meaning will ever be removed. Other interpreters take it as a verb in the second person plural, and hence the decided difference of interpretation.

The sixth paragraph of the same passage is explained by the Pehlevi translator as follows:

Professor Spiegel translates:

Dr. Haug in 1862:

Dr. Haug in 1865:

To those who are interested in the study of Zend, and wish to judge for themselves of the trustworthiness of these various translations, we can recommend a most useful work lately published in Germany by Dr. F. Justi, 'Handbuch der Zendsprache,' containing a complete dictionary, a grammar, and selections from the Zend-Avesta.

September, 1865.

VII.

GENESIS AND THE ZEND-AVESTA.[49]

 that scholars could have the benefit of a little legal training, and learn at least the difference between what is probable and what is proven! What an advantage also, if they had occasionally to address a jury of respectable tradespeople, and were forced to acquire the art, or rather not to shrink from the effort, of putting the most intricate and delicate points in the simplest and clearest form of which they admit! What a lesson again it would be to men of independent research, if, after having amassed ever so many bags full of evidence, they had always before their eyes the fear of an impatient judge who wants to hear nothing but what is important and essential, and hates to listen to anything that is not to the point, however carefully it may have been worked out, and however eloquently it may be laid before him! There is hardly one book published now-a-days which, if everything in it that is not to the purpose were left out, could not be reduced to half its size. If authors could make up their minds to omit everything that is only meant to display their learning, to exhibit the difficulties they had to overcome, or to call attention to the ignorance of their predecessors, many a volume of thirty sheets would collapse into a pamphlet of fifty pages, though in that form it would probably produce a much greater effect than in its more inflated appearance.

Did the writers of the Old Testament borrow anything from the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, or the Indians, is a simple enough question. It is a question that may be treated quite apart from any theological theories; for the Old Testament, whatever view the Jews may take of its origin, may surely be regarded by the historian as a really historical book, written at a certain time in the history of the world, in a language then spoken and understood, and proclaiming certain facts and doctrines meant to be acceptable and intelligible to the Jews, such as they were at that time, an historical nation, holding a definite place by the side of their more or less distant neighbours, whether Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, or Indians. It is well known that we have in the language of the New Testament the clear vestiges of Greek and Roman influences, and if we knew nothing of the historical intercourse between those two nations and the writers of the New Testament, the very expressions used by them—not only their language, but their thoughts, their allusions, illustrations, and similes—would enable us to say that some historical contact had taken place between the philosophers of Greece, the lawgivers of Rome, and the people of Judea. Why then should not the same question be asked with regard to more ancient times? Why should there be any hesitation in pointing out in the Old Testament an Egyptian custom, or a Greek word, or a Persian conception? If Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, nothing surely would stamp his writings as more truly historical than traces of Egyptian influences that might be discovered in his laws. If Daniel prospered in the reign of Cyrus the Persian, every Persian word that could be discovered in Daniel would be most valuable in the eyes of a critical historian. The only thing which we may fairly require in investigations of this kind is that the facts should be clearly established. The subject is surely an important one—important historically, quite apart from any theological consequences that may be supposed to follow. It is as important to find out whether the authors of the Old Testament had come in contact with the language and ideas of Babylon, Persia, or Egypt, as it is to know that the Jews, at the time of our Lord's appearance, had been reached by the rays of Greek and Roman civilisation—that in fact our Lord, his disciples, and many of his followers, spoke Greek as well as Hebrew (i. e. Chaldee), and were no strangers to that sphere of thought in which the world of the Gentiles, the Greeks, and Romans had been moving for centuries.

Hints have been thrown out from time to time by various writers that certain ideas in the Old Testament might be ascribed to Persian influences, and be traced back to the Zend-Avesta, the sacred writings of Zoroaster. Much progress has been made in the deciphering of these ancient documents, since Anquetil Duperron brought the first instalment of MSS. from Bombay, and since the late Eugène Burnouf, in his 'Commentaire sur le Yasna,' succeeded in establishing the grammar and dictionary of the Zend language upon a safe basis. Several editions of the works of Zoroaster have been published in France, Denmark, and Germany; and after the labours of Spiegel, Westergaard, Haug, and others, it might be supposed that such a question as the influence of Persian ideas on the writers of the Old Testament might at last be answered either in the affirmative or in the negative. We were much pleased, therefore, on finding that Professor Spiegel, the learned editor and translator of the Avesta, had devoted a chapter of his last work, 'Erân, das Land zwischen dem Indus und Tigris,' to the problem in question. We read his chapter, 'Avesta und die Genesis, oder die Beziehungen der Eranier zu den Semiten,' with the warmest interest, and when we had finished it, we put down the book with the very exclamation with which we began our article.

We do not mean to say anything disrespectful to Professor Spiegel, a scholar brimfull of learning, and one of the two or three men who know the Avesta by heart. He is likewise a good Semitic scholar, and knows enough of Hebrew to form an independent opinion on the language, style, and general character of the different books of the Old Testament. He brings together in his Essay a great deal of interesting information, and altogether would seem to be one of the most valuable witnesses to give evidence on the point in question. Yet suppose him for a moment in a court of justice where, as in a patent case, some great issue depends on the question whether certain ideas had first been enunciated by the author of Genesis or the author of the Avesta; suppose him subjected to a cross-examination by a brow-beating lawyer, whose business it is to disbelieve and make others disbelieve every assertion that the witness makes, and we are afraid the learned Professor would break down completely. Now it may be said that this is not the spirit in which learned inquiries should be conducted, that authors have a right to a certain respect, and may reckon on a certain amount of willingness on the part of their readers. Such a plea may, perhaps, be urged when all preliminary questions in a contest have been disposed of, when all the evidence has been proved to lie in one direction, and when even the most obstinate among the gentlemen of the jury feel that the verdict is as good as settled. But in a question like this, where everything is doubtful, or, we should rather say, where all the prepossessions are against the view which Dr. Spiegel upholds, it is absolutely necessary for a new witness to be armed from top to toe, to lay himself open to no attack, to measure his words, and advance step by step in a straight line to the point that has to be reached. A writer like Dr. Spiegel should know that he can expect no mercy; nay, he should himself wish for no mercy, but invite the heaviest artillery against the floating battery which he has launched into the troubled waters of Biblical criticism. If he feels that his case is not strong enough, the wisest plan surely is to wait, to accumulate new strength if possible, or, if no new evidence is forthcoming, to acknowledge openly that there is no case.

M. Bréal—who, in his interesting Essay 'Hercule et Cacus,' has lately treated the same problem, the influence of Persian ideas on the writers of the Old Testament—gives an excellent example of how a case of this kind should be argued. He begins with the apocryphal books, and he shows that the name of an evil spirit like Asmodeus, which occurs in Tobit, could be borrowed from Persia only. It is a name inexplicable in Hebrew, and it represents very closely the Parsi Eshem-dev, the Zend Aêshma daêva, the spirit of concupiscence, mentioned several times in the Avesta (Vendidad, c. 10), as one of the devs, or evil spirits. Now this is the kind of evidence we want for the Old Testament. We can easily discover a French word in English, nor is it difficult to tell a Persian word in Hebrew. Are there any Persian words in Genesis, words of the same kind as Asmodeus in Tobit? No such evidence has been brought forward, and the only words we can think of which, if not Persian, may be considered of Aryan origin, are the names of such rivers as Tigris and Euphrates; and of countries such as Ophir and Havilah among the descendants of Shem, Javan, Meshech, and others among the descendants of Japhet. These names are probably foreign names, and as such naturally mentioned by the author of Genesis in their foreign form. If there are other words of Aryan or Iranian origin in Genesis, they ought to have occupied the most prominent place in Dr. Spiegel's pleading.

We now proceed, and we are again quite willing to admit that, even without the presence of Persian words, the presence of Persian ideas might be detected by careful analysis. No doubt this is a much more delicate process, yet, as we can discover Jewish and Christian ideas in the Koran, there ought to be no insurmountable difficulty in pointing out any Persian ingredients in Genesis, however disguised and assimilated. Only, before we look for such ideas, it is necessary to show the channel through which they could possibly have flowed either from the Avesta into Genesis, or from Genesis into the Avesta. History shows us clearly how Persian words and ideas could have found their way into such late works as Tobit, or even into the book of Daniel, whether he prospered in the reign of Darius, or in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. But how did Persians and Jews come in contact, previously to the age of Cyrus? Dr. Spiegel says that Zoroaster was born in Arran. This name is given by mediæval Mohammedan writers to the plain washed by the Araxes, and was identified by Anquetil Duperron with the name Airyana vaêga, which the Zend-Avesta gives to the first created land of Ormuzd. The Parsis place this sacred country in the vicinity of Atropatene, and it is clearly meant as the northernmost country known to the author or authors of the Zend-Avesta. We think that Dr. Spiegel is right in defending the geographical position assigned by tradition to Airyana vaêga, against modern theories that would place it more eastward in the plain of Pamer, nor do we hesitate to admit that the name (Airyana vaêga, i. e. the seed of the Aryan) might have been changed into Arran. We likewise acknowledge the force of the arguments by which he shows that the books now called Zend-Avesta were composed in the Eastern, and not in the Western, provinces of the Persian monarchy, though we are hardly prepared to subscribe at once to his conclusion (p. 270) that, because Zoroaster is placed by the Avesta and by later traditions in Arran, or the Western provinces, he could not possibly be the author of the Avesta, a literary production which would appear to belong exclusively to the Eastern provinces. The very tradition to which Dr. Spiegel appeals represents Zoroaster as migrating from Arran to Balkh, to the court of Gustasp, the son of Lohrasp; and, as one tradition has as much value as another, we might well admit that the work of Zoroaster, as a religious teacher, began in Balkh, and from thence extended still further East. But admitting that Arran, the country washed by the Araxes, was the birthplace of Zoroaster, can we possibly follow Dr. Spiegel when he says, Arran seems to be identical with Haran, the birthplace of Abraham? Does he mean the names to be identical? Then how are the aspirate and the double r to be explained? how is it to be accounted for that the mediæval corruption of Airyana vaêga, namely Arran, should appear in Genesis? And if the dissimilarity of the two names is waived, is it possible in two lines to settle the much contested situation of Haran, and thus to determine the ancient watershed between the Semitic and Aryan nations? The Abbé Banier, more than a hundred years ago, pointed out that Haran, whither Abraham repaired, was the metropolis of Sabism, and that Magism was practised in Ur of the Chaldees ('Mythology, explained by History,' vol. i. book iii. cap. 3). Dr. Spiegel having, as he believes, established the most ancient meeting-point between Abraham and Zoroaster, proceeds to argue that whatever ideas are shared in common by Genesis and the Avesta must be referred to that very ancient period when personal intercourse was still possible between Abraham and Zoroaster, the prophets of the Jews and the Iranians. Now, here the counsel for the defence would remind Dr. Spiegel that Genesis was not the work of Abraham, nor, according to Dr. Spiegel's view, was Zoroaster the author of the Zend-Avesta; and that therefore the neighbourly intercourse between Zoroaster and Abraham in the country of Arran had nothing to do with the ideas shared in common by Genesis and the Avesta. But even if we admitted, for argument's sake, that as Dr. Spiegel puts it, the Avesta contains Zoroastrian and Genesis Abrahamitic ideas, surely there was ample opportunity for Jewish ideas to find admission into what we call the Avesta, or for Iranian ideas to find admission into Genesis, after the date of Abraham and Zoroaster, and before the time when we find the first MSS. of Genesis and the Avesta. The Zend MSS. of the Avesta are very modern, so are the Hebrew MSS. of Genesis, which do not carry us beyond the tenth century after Christ. The text of the Avesta, however, can be checked by the Pehlevi translation, which was made under the Sassanian dynasty (226-651 a.d.), just as the text of Genesis can be checked by the Septuagint translation, which was made in the third century before Christ. Now, it is known that about the same time and in the same place—namely at Alexandria—where the Old Testament was rendered into Greek, the Avesta also was translated into the same language, so that we have at Alexandria in the third century b.c. a well established historical contact between the believers in Genesis and the believers in the Avesta, and an easy opening for that exchange of ideas which, according to Dr. Spiegel, could have taken place nowhere but in Arran, and at the time of Abraham and Zoroaster. It might be objected that this was wrangling for victory, and not arguing for truth, and that no real scholar would admit that the Avesta, in its original form, did not go back to a much earlier date than the third century before Christ. Yet, when such a general principle is to be laid down, that all that Genesis and Avesta share in common must belong to a time before Abraham had started for Canaan, and Zoroaster for Balkh, other possible means of later intercourse should surely not be entirely lost sight of.

For what happens? The very first tradition that is brought forward as one common to both these ancient works—namely, that of the Four Ages of the World—is confessedly found in the later writings only of the Parsis, and cannot be traced back in its definite shape beyond the time of the Sassanians (Erân, p. 275). Indications of it are said to be found in the earlier writings, but these indications are extremely vague. But we must advance a step further, and, after reading very carefully the three pages devoted to this subject by Dr. Spiegel, we must confess we see no similarity whatever on that point between Genesis and the Avesta. In Genesis, the Four Ages have never assumed the form of a theory, as in India, Persia, or perhaps in Greece. If we say that the period from Adam to Noah is the first, that from Noah to Abraham the second, that from Abraham to the death of Jacob the third, that beginning with the exile in Egypt the fourth, we are transferring our ideas to Genesis, but we cannot say that the writer of Genesis himself laid a peculiar stress on this fourfold division. The Parsis, on the contrary, have a definite system. According to them the world is to last 12,000 years. During the first period of 3,000 years the world was created. During the second period Gayo-maratan, the first man lived by himself, without suffering from the attacks of evil. During the third period of 3,000 years the war between good and evil, between Ormuzd and Ahriman, began with the utmost fierceness; and it will gradually abate during the fourth period of 3,000 years, which is still to elapse before the final victory of good. Where here is the similarity between Genesis and the Avesta? We are referred by Dr. Spiegel to Dr. Windischmann's 'Zoroastrian Studies,' and to his discovery that there are ten generations between Adam and Noah, as there are ten generations between Yima and Thraêtaona; that there are twelve generations between Shem and Isaac, as there are twelve between Thraêtaona and Manuskitra; and that there are thirteen generations between Isaac and David, as there are thirteen between Manuskitra and Zarathustra. What has the learned counsel for the defence to say to this? First, that the name of Shem is put by mistake for that of Noah. Secondly, that Yima, who is here identified with Adam, is never represented in the Avesta as the first man, but is preceded there by numerous ancestors, and surrounded by numerous subjects, who are not his offspring. Thirdly, that in order to establish in Genesis three periods of ten, twelve, and thirteen generations, it is necessary to count Isaac, who clearly belongs to the third, as a member of the second, so that in reality the number of generations is the same in one only out of the three periods, which surely proves nothing. As to any similarity between the Four Yugas of the Brahmans and the Four Ages of the Parsis, we can only say that, if it exists, no one has as yet brought it out. The Greeks, again, who are likewise said to share the primitive doctrine of the Four Ages, believe really in five, and not in four, and separate them in a manner which does not in the least remind us of Hindu Yugas, Hebrew patriarchs, or the battle between Ormuzd and Ahriman.

We proceed to a second point—the Creation as related in Genesis and the Avesta. Here we certainly find some curious coincidences. The world is created in six days in Genesis, and in six periods in the Avesta, which six periods together form one year. In Genesis the creation ends with the creation of man, so it does in the Avesta. On all other points Dr. Spiegel admits the two accounts differ, but they are said to agree again in the temptation and the fall. As Dr. Spiegel has not given the details of the temptation and the fall from the Avesta, we cannot judge of the points which he considers to be borrowed by the Jews from the Persians; but if we consult M. Bréal, who has treated the same subject more fully in his 'Hercule et Cacus,' we find there no more than this, that the Dualism of the Avesta, the struggle between Ormuzd and Ahriman, or the principles of light and darkness, is to be considered as the distant reflex of the grand struggle between Indra, the god of the sky, and Vritra, the demon of night and darkness, which forms the constant burden of the hymns of the Rig-veda. In this view there is some truth, but we doubt whether it fully exhibits the vital principle of the Zoroastrian religion, which is founded on a solemn protest against the whole worship of the powers of nature invoked in the Vedas, and on the recognition of one supreme power, the God of Light, in every sense of the word—the spirit Ahura, who created the world and rules it, and defends it against the power of evil. That power of evil which in the most ancient portions of the Avesta has not yet received the name of Ahriman (i. e. angro mainyus), may afterwards have assumed some of the epithets which in an earlier period were bestowed on Vritra and other enemies of the bright gods, and among them, it may have assumed the name of serpent. But does it follow, because the principle of evil in the Avesta is called serpent, or azhi dahâka, that therefore the serpent mentioned in the third chapter of Genesis must be borrowed from Persia? Neither in the Veda nor in the Avesta does the serpent ever assume that subtil and insinuating form as in Genesis; and the curse pronounced on it, 'to be cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field,' is not in keeping with the relation of Vritra to Indra, or Ahriman to Ormuzd, who face each other almost as equals. In later books, such as 1 Chronicles xxi. 1, where Satan is mentioned as provoking David to number Israel (the very same provocation which in 2 Samuel xxiv. 1 is ascribed to the anger of the Lord moving David to number Israel and Judah), and in all the passages of the New Testament where the power of evil is spoken of as a person, we may admit the influence of Persian ideas and Persian expressions, though even here strict proof is by no means easy. As to the serpent in Paradise, it is a conception that might have sprung up among the Jews as well as among the Brahmans; and the serpent that beguiled Eve seems hardly to invite comparison with the much grander conceptions of the terrible power of Vritra and Ahriman in the Veda and Avesta.

Dr. Spiegel next discusses the similarity between the Garden of Eden and the Paradise of the Zoroastrians, and though he admits that here again he relies chiefly on the Bundehesh, a work of the Sassanian period, he maintains that that work may well be compared to Genesis, because it contains none but really ancient traditions. We do not for a moment deny that this may be so, but in a case like the present, where everything depends on exact dates, we decline to listen to such a plea. We value Dr. Spiegel's translations from the Bundehesh most highly, and we believe with him (p. 283) that there is little doubt as to the Pishon being the Indus, and the Gihon the Jaxartes. The identification, too, of the Persian river-name Ranha (the Vedic Rasâ) with the Araxes, the name given by Herodotus (i. 202) to the Jaxartes, seems very ingenious and well established. But we should still like to know why and in what language the Indus was first called Pishon, and the Jaxartes, or, it may be, the Oxus, Gihon.

We next come to the two trees in the garden of Eden, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. Dr. Windischmann has shown that the Iranians, too, were acquainted with two trees, one called Gaokerena, bearing the white Haoma, the other called the Painless tree. We are told first that these two trees are the same as the one fig tree out of which the Indians believe the world to have been created. Now, first of all, the Indians believed no such thing, and secondly, there is the same difference between one and two trees as there is between North and South. But we confess that until we know a good deal more about these two trees of the Iranians, we feel no inclination whatever to compare the Painless tree and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, though perhaps the white Haoma tree might remind us of the tree of life, considering that Haoma, as well as the Indian Soma, was supposed to give immortality to those who drank its juice. We likewise consider the comparison of the Cherubim who keep the way of the tree of life and the guardians of the Soma in the Veda and Avesta, as deserving attention, and we should like to see the etymological derivation of Cherubim from γρὑφες, Greifen, and of Seraphim from the Sanskrit sarpa, serpents, either confirmed or refuted.

The Deluge is not mentioned in the sacred writings of the Zoroastrians, nor in the hymns of the Rig-veda. It is mentioned, however, in one of the latest Brâhmanas, and the carefully balanced arguments of Burnouf, who considered the tradition of the Deluge as borrowed by the Indians from Semitic neighbours, seem to us to be strengthened, rather than weakened, by the isolated appearance of the story of the Deluge in this one passage out of the whole of the Vedic literature. Nothing, however, has yet been pointed out to force us to admit a Semitic origin for the story of the Flood, as told in the Satapatha-brâhmana, and afterwards repeated in the Mahâbhârata and the Purânas: the number of days being really the only point on which the two accounts startle us by their agreement.

That Noah's ark rested upon the mountain of Ararat, and that Ararat may admit of a Persian etymology, is nothing to the point. The etymology itself is ingenious, but no more. The same remark applies to all the rest of Dr. Spiegel's arguments. Thraêtaona, who has before been compared to Noah, divided his land among his three sons, and gave Iran to the youngest, an injustice which exasperated his brothers, who murdered him. Now it is true that Noah, too, had three sons, but here the similarity ends; for that Terach had three sons, and that one of them only, Abram, took possession of the land of promise, and that of the two sons of Isaac, the youngest became the heir, is again of no consequence for our immediate purpose, though it may remind Dr. Spiegel and others of the history of Thraêtaona. We agree with Dr. Spiegel, that Zoroaster's character resembles most closely the true Semitic notion of a prophet. He is considered worthy of personal intercourse with Ormuzd; he receives from Ormuzd every word, though not, as Dr. Spiegel says, every letter of the law. But if Zoroaster was a real character, so was Abraham, and their being like each other proves in no way that they lived in the same place, or at the same time, or that they borrowed aught one from the other. What Dr. Spiegel says of the Persian name of the Deity, Ahura, is very doubtful. Ahura, he says, as well as ahu, means lord, and must be traced back to the root ah, the Sanskrit as, which means to be, so that Ahura would signify the same as Jahve, he who is. The root 'as' no doubt means to be, but it has that meaning because it originally meant to breathe. From it, in its original sense of breathing, the Hindus formed asu, breath, and asura, the name of God, whether it meant the breathing one, or the giver of breath. This asura became in Zend ahura, and if it assumed the general meaning of Lord, this is as much a secondary meaning as the meaning of demon or evil spirit, which asura assumed in the later Sanskrit of the Brâhmanas.

After this, Dr. Spiegel proceeds to sum up his evidence. He has no more to say, but he believes that he has proved the following points: a very early intercourse between Semitic and Aryan nations; a common belief shared by both in a paradise situated near the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes; the dwelling together of Abraham and Zoroaster in Haran, Arran, or Airyana vaêga. Semitic and Aryan nations, he tells us, still live together in those parts of the world, and so it was from the beginning. As the form of the Jewish traditions comes nearer to the Persian than to the Indian traditions, we are asked to believe that these two races lived in the closest contact before, from this ancient hearth of civilisation, they started towards the West and the East—that is to say, before Abraham migrated to Canaan, and before India was peopled by the Brahmans.

We have given a fair account of Dr. Spiegel's arguments, and we need not say that we should have hailed with equal pleasure any solid facts by which to establish either the dependence of Genesis on the Zend-Avesta, or the dependence of the Zend-Avesta on Genesis. It would be absurd to resist facts where facts exist; nor can we imagine any reason why, if Abraham came into personal contact with Zoroaster, the Jewish patriarch should have learnt nothing from the Iranian prophet, or vice versâ. If such an intercourse could be established, it would but serve to strengthen the historical character of the books of the Old Testament, and would be worth more than all the elaborate theories that have been started on the purely miraculous origin of these books. But though we by no means deny that some more tangible points of resemblance may yet be discovered between the Old Testament and the Zend-Avesta, we must protest against having so interesting and so important a matter handled in such an unbusinesslike manner.

April, 1864.