[274] See Vol. I, p. 7.

[275] “Vivendi licentia, inquies, illos allicit. Ita puto: sed aliquid aliud est quod illos sub boni verique specie decipiat. Habet nimirum hæc superstitio quidquid plausibile ac probabile in Christiana Religione reperitur et quæ naturæ legi ac lumini consèntanea videntur. Mysteria illa fidei nostræ quæ primo aspectu inchedibilia et impossibiblia apparent, et præcipue quæ nimis ardua humanæ naturæ consentur, penitus excludit.” Op. cit. Tom. I, p. 4.

[276] Dictionnaire Philosophique, s. v. “Mahometanisme.”

[277] Mankind and the Church, p. 289 (by G. A. Lefroy, London, 1907).

[278] “A certain solidarity characterizes not only family relations but all Moslem society. There are no paupers; almsgiving is not a mere theoretical obligation but an essential religious duty really discharged. It may be replied that there are many beggars. There are and the spectacle is very unpleasant; but from the beggars’ point of view, could they, given their misfortunes, have a better life? If one has twisted limbs or any incurable malady, including laziness, is it not more healthy, interesting and lucrative to sit begging at street-corners than to be the inmate of a charitable institution? One thing is certain—Moslem beggars never starve.” Turkey in Europe, p. 176 (by Sir Charles Eliot, London, 1908).

[279] Lieutenant Wood, the gallant explorer of the Oxus, referring to this subject, writes: “Often ... have I observed that the Mohammedans, both old and young, however worn out by fatigue or suffering from hunger and thirst, have postponed all thought of self-indulgence to their duty to their God.

It is not with them the mere force of habit; it is the strong impression on their minds that the duty of prayer is so important that no circumstance can excuse its omission.” Journey to the Source of the Oxus, p. 93 (London, 1872).

[280] These good reports about Mohammedans are not of recent date. Read what Ricoldus de Monte Crucis, a Dominican missionary among them in the thirteenth century, has to say of them: “Quis enim non obstupescat si diligenter consideret quanta ... devotio in oratione, misericordia ad pauperes, reverencia ad nomen Dei et prophetas et loca sancta, gravitas in moribus, affabilitas ad extraneos, concordia et amor ad suos.” Peregrinatores Medii Ævi Quatuor, p. 131 (by J. C. M. Laurent, Leipsic, 1864).

[281] Regarding the Armenian’s capacity for business, Mr. Curzon has wittily remarked, that, while “it takes four Turks to cheat one Frank, two Franks to cheat one Greek and two Greeks to cheat one Jew, it takes six Jews to cheat one Armenian.” Researches in the Highlands of Turkey, Vol. I, p. 8 (by H. F. Tozer, London, 1869).

According to Dr. Schliemann, however, the palm for business ability must be awarded to the Greeks from the island of Lesbos. “The Lesbian Greeks,” he tells us, “have the reputation of being the shrewdest merchants in the world; as a proof it is alleged that in cities the commerce of which is in the hands of Lesbians not a Jew is to be found.” Troja, p. 324.

[282] The learned Benedictine, Father Parisot, has recently collected the vocabulary of this interesting dialect which is threatened with early extinction.

[283] This peculiarity is explained by the fact that when the Jews and Moors were expelled from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century tens of thousands of Jews migrated to Salonica and Constantinople where Spanish is still spoken by large numbers of their descendants.

[284] A like superstition attaches to nearly all similar remains of antiquity not only in Syria but in Egypt as well. Some are reputed to have special virtues for those suffering from tic-douloureux or from rheumatism for which affections they are said by Orientals to possess even greater curative properties than their famous panacea—the bezoar stone.

[285] Ibn Butlan, a noted Arabian physician, and a Christian, of Bagdad, who visited Aleppo in the middle of the eleventh century thus refers to this curious tradition: “In the lower part of the castle is a cave where he”—Abraham—“concealed his flocks. When he milked these, the people used to come for their milk crying ‘Halaba ya la’?—Milked yet or not?—asking thus one of the other, and hence the city came to be called Halab—Milked.” Cf. G. le Strange’s Palestine Under the Moslems, p. 363 (London, 1890).

[286] The Hittites, p. 12 (London, 1903).

[287] Genesis xxiii.

[288] Ezekiel xvi: 3.

[289] Kings ii: 12.

[290] St. Jerome in the beginning of his commentary on the gospel of St. Matthew, pertinently observes in this connection: “Notandum est ... nullam sanctarum assumi mulierum sed eas quas Scriptura reprehendit: ut que propter peccatores venerat, de peccatoribus nascens, omnium peccata deleret. Unde et in consequentibus Ruth Moabitis ponitur et Bethsabee uxor Uriæ.”

[291] Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, p. 147 (London, 1822).

[292] Cf. The Language of the Hittites in The Times Literary Supplement, p. 180 (London, April 3, 1919).

[293] When the speech of the Hittites ceased to be a living tongue cannot even be surmised. St. Paul heard it in Lystra of Lycaonia, but how much later it may have continued to be spoken in certain other parts of Asia Minor cannot now be determined. As a people they doubtless long survived and, although they were gradually absorbed by neighboring races, “it is believed that some of them still exist, with their early distinctive characteristics, among the hills of the anti-Taurus range.”

We are likewise in ignorance as to when the languages of Egypt and Babylonia gave place to those of their conquerors. According to Sayce “the Egyptian hieroglyphics were still written and read in the time of Decius, the cuneiform characters of Babylon were employed in the age of Domitian.” The Ancient Empires of the East, p. ix (New York, 1886).

[294] According to recent investigations this was probably what is now known as the Wady el ’Arish and not the Nile, as usually supposed.

[295] Genesis xii: 5.

[296] Sayce’s Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, p. 410 (London, 1898). Lucius Ampelius writing in his Liber Memorialis, Cap. II, of the origin of the constellations, refers to a more extraordinary legend in connection with the Euphrates. “Pisces ideo pisces quia bello Gigantum Venus perturbata in piscem se transfiguravit. Nam dicitur et in Euphrate fluvio ovum piscis in ora flumimis columba adsedisse dies plurimos et exclusisse deam benignam et misericordem hominibus ad bonam vitam. Utrique memoriæ causa pisces inter sidera locati.”

[297] For an interesting report on the excavations made at Djerabis on behalf of the British Museum, see the beautifully illustrated monograph Carchemish (by D. G. Hogarth, London, 1915).

[298] It is to this legend that is due the Mussulman name—Nimroud Dagh—the Mountain of Nimrod—of the elevation on which stands the citadel of Urfa.

[299] In the “Testament of St. Ephrem,” as given by Assemani, occurs the words “Benedicta civitas, ... Edessa sapientum mater, quæ ex vivo Filii ore benedictionem per ejus discipulum accepit. Illa igitur benedictio in ea maneat donec Sanctus apparuerit.” Bibliotheca Orientalis, Tom. I, p. 141 (Rome, 1719).

[300] Cf. Histoire Politique, Religieuse et Littéraire d’ Edesse jusque à la Première Croisade, p. 81 (by R. Duval, Paris, 1892).

[301] Ecclesiastical History, Bk. I, Chap. XIII.

[302] An ancient manuscript in the British Museum contains a service book of Saxon times, in which the letter of Our Lord to Abgar follows the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed. At the end of the letter, which is in the Latin version of Rufinus, occurs the words: “Sive in domu tua, sive in civitate tua, sive in omni loco nemo inimicorum tuorum dominabit. Et insidias diaboli ne timeas et carmina inimicorum tuorum destruuntur (sic), et omnes inimici tui expellentur a te: sive a grandine, sive a tonitrua (sic) non noceberis, et ab omni periculo liberaberis: sive in mare, sive in terra, sive in die, sive in nocte, sive in locis obscuris. Si quis hanc epistolam secum habuerit, securus ambulet in pace.” Cf. Ancient Syriac Documents Relative to the Earliest Establishment of Christianity in Edessa and the Neighboring Countries, from the Year after Our Lord’s Ascension to the Beginning of the Fourth Century, Discovered, Edited, Translated and Annotated by the late W. Cureton, p. 154 (London, 1864). See also The Book of Cerne, p. 205, et seq. (by the erudite Benedictine, Dom. A. B. Kuypers, Cambridge, England, 1902).

[303] For a critical discussion of the “Legend of Abgar” see Les Origines de l’Eglise d’Edesse et La Légende d’ Abgar (by the learned Sulpician, L. J. Tixeront, Paris, 1888).

“The practice of keeping this letter as a philactery prevailed in England till the last century.... ‘The common people’ there have had it in their houses in many places in a frame with a picture before it and they generally with much honesty and devotion regard it as the word of God and the genuine epistle of Christ.’... I have a recollection of having seen the same thing in cottages in Shropshire.” Cureton, op. cit., p. 155.

[304] In the province of Osrhoene, about a day’s journey from Edessa, was a celebrated mart called Batne, where the Indians and the Seres came to trade with the Edessenes and rich merchants from other cities at an annual fair which was held in this place in the month of September. Here, Ammianus Marcellinus informs us “magna promiscuæ fortunæ convenit multitudo ad commercanda quæ Indi et Seres aliaque plurima vehi terra marique consueta.” Rerum Gestarum, Lib. XIV, Cap. III, 3.

For an illuminating map showing the importance of Edessa as a trade center during Roman times, see V. Chapot’s La Frontière de L’Euphrate de Pompée à la Conquête Arabe, facing p. 402 (Paris, 1907).

[305] L. J. Tixeront, op. cit., p. 7, et seq.

[306] Cf. The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Record and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, p. 200 (by T. G. Pinches, London, 1908).

[307] Genesis xi: 31.

[308] Ibid., 17.

[309] Purgatorio, XXVII, 94–108. Dante but follows the teaching of the Angelic Doctor who, writing on the active and the contemplative life, declares: “Istæ duæ vitæ significantur per duas uxores Jacob: activa quidem per Liam, contemplativa vero per Rachelem; et per duas mulieres quæ Dominum hospitio receperunt: contemplativa quidem per Mariam, activa vero per Martham.” Summ. Theol. Pars II, 2dæ, Q CLXXIX, Art. i.

[310] Cf. The Book of the Bee, p. 95–97, from the Syriac of Mar Solomon, Bishop of Basra (trans. by E. A. W. Budge, Oxford, 1886).

[311] Students of history will remember that the Emperor Carcacalla was assassinated at Haran by one of his soldiers while on a visit to the temple of the Moon. The Roman general Crassus suffered a crushing defeat at the same place and was treacherously slain in the vicinity while in a conference with a Persian satrap.

[312] “Quæ jam a Mithradati regni temporibus, ne Oriens a Persis occuparetur, viribus restitit maximis.” Lib. XXV, Cap. IX.

[313] Cf. Assemani, op. cit., Tom. III, Part II, p. 927, et seq.

Nisibis, “la grand metropole nestorienne, vit naïtre dans ses murs la première Université théologique, les premiers cours publics de théologie. Ce phenomene qui excitait l’admiration et étonnement du quæstor sacri palatii de Justinien ne peut que nous donner une idée avantageuse de la culture du clerge nestorien a cette époque de son histoire.” Le Christianisme dan l’Empire Perse sous la Dynastie Sassanide, (224–632), p. 301 (by J. Labourt, Paris, 1904).

[314] Dion Cassius, History of Rome, Bk. I, XVIII, 26.

[315] Genesis xxxv: 8.

[316] “In such circumstances,” writes one who knew the desert well, “the mind is influenced through the body. Though your mouth glows and your skin is parched with heat, yet you feel no languor, the effect of humid heat; your lungs are lightened, your sight brightens, your memory recovers its tone and your spirits become exuberant; your fancy and imagination are powerfully aroused and the wildness and sublimity of the scenes around you stir up all the energies of your soul—whether for exertion, danger or strife. Your morale improves; you become frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded: the hypocritical politeness and the slavery of civilization are left behind you in the city.... All feel their hearts dilate and their pulses beat strong as they look down from their dromedaries upon the glorious desert. Where do we hear of a traveler being disappointed by it? It is another illustration of the ancient truth that Nature returns to man, however unworthily he has treated her. And believe me, when once your tastes have conformed to the tranquillity of such travel, you will suffer real pain in returning to the turmoil of civilization. You will anticipate the bustle and confusion of artificial life, its luxury and its false pleasures with repugnance. Depressed in spirits you will for a time after your return feel incapable of bodily or mental exertion. The air of cities will suffocate you and the care-worn and cadaverous countenances of citizens will haunt you like a vision of judgment.” Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah, Vol. I, pp. 150, 151 (by Richard F. Burton, London, 1893).

[317] A celeritate Tigris incipit vocari. Ita appellant Medi sagittam. Pliny, Naturalis Historia, VI, XXVII.

[318] We have seen in a previous chapter how unfounded is this statement.

[319] The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Vol. I, p. 60 (trans. by H. Yule, London, 1903).

[320] Geschichte der Ilchaner, Vol. I, p. 191 (Darmstadt, 1842).

[321] Acts of the Apostles, ii: 9, 11.

[322] See map III of Heussi and Mulert’s Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte for the extensive territory occupied by the Nestorian Church during its greatest development.

[323] The dwelling of the Patriarch, as described by a noted traveler of the last century, “is solidly built of hewn-stone and stands on the very edge of a precipice overhanging a ravine through which winds a branch of the Zab. A dark vaulted passage led us into a room scarcely better lighted by a small window closed by a greased sheet of coarse paper. The tattered remains of a felt carpet, spread in a corner, was the whole of its furniture. The garments of the Patriarch were hardly less worn and ragged. Even the miserable allowance of 300 piastres, about £2 10s., which the Porte had promised to pay him monthly on his return to the mountains was long in arrears, and he was supported entirely by the contributions of his faithful but poverty-stricken flock. Kochanes was, moreover, still a heap of ruins.” Discoveries among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, with Travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the Desert, p. 363 (by A. H. Layard, New York, 1856).

[324] “La progression des Chrétians a été la suivante; en 1750, zéro; en 1856, de 30,000 a 40,000; en 1900, 66,000. Tout donne à espérer que le retour définitif des Nestoriens à la foi portera bientot et définitivement ce nombre, si ce n’est deja un fait accomplit, a 140,000.” Les Missions Catholiques Francaises au XIXe Siècle, p. 271 (Paris, 1900).

[325] For the dogmatic definitions of the Church at the General Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon against the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches see Denzinger’s Enchiridion, pp. 52, 65.

[326] The word Copt is apparently derived from the middle part of the Greek word Aigyptos which means Egyptian. It is, however, always used to indicate a member of the Egyptian Monophysite Church.

[327] Melchite is a Græco-Syriac word which signifies imperial. It was given at the outbreak of the Monophysite schism to those Christians in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt who accepted the decrees of Chalcedon and remained loyal to the Emperor in Constantinople and to the Catholic Church. The name is now applied to the Uniates of these lands.

[328] Cf. Verfassung und gegenwärtiger Bestand Sämtilicler Kirchen des Orients, p. 384 (by I. Silbernagl, Regensburg, 1904).

[329] The Orthodox Eastern Church, p. 19 (by A. Fortescue, London, 1908).

[330] Fortescue, op. cit., p. 15.

[331] Not having a hierarchy, the Protestants in Turkey do not constitute a Millet. The Porte has consequently organized them, consisting chiefly of a small number of converted Armenians, and Syrians, into a special group under the Minister of Police.

[332] Among Orientals a common designation of Franks, which, since the time of the Crusades, has been applied to all the inhabitants of Western Europe.

[333] Paradiso, VI, I, 2.

[334] Addressing once a company of bishops Constantine declared: “You are bishops whose jurisdiction is within the Church; I also am a bishop ordained by God to overlook whatever is external to the Church.” Eusebius, The Life of Constantine, IV, 24.

[335] Fortescue, op. cit., p. 28.

[336] The Churches Separated from Rome, p. 151 (by L. Duchesne, New York, 1907).

“For three centuries after the foundation of New Rome,” writes Freeman, “Latin remained the tongue of government, law and warfare; and down to the last days of the Empire survivals of its use in that character still lingered on.... But Greek was from the beginning the tongue of literature and religion; and, even under Justinian himself, it began to creep into use as an alternative language of the law of Rome.—Gradually the Greek tongue displaced Latin for all purposes, but not till it had received a large infusion of Latin technical terms.... Save this technical Latin infusion the tongue of Constantinople was thoroughly Greek. The strange spectacle was there to be seen of an Emperor of the Romans, a Patriarch of New Rome, a Roman Senate and People glorying in the Roman name, and deriving their whole political existence from a Roman source, but in whose eyes the speech of Ennius and Tacitus and Claudian was simply the despised idiom of Western heretics and barbarians.” Historical Essays, Third Series, pp. 248, 249 (London, 1879).

[337] How great was their exasperation at the Pope’s action is evinced by the language they addressed to Luitprand, Archbishop of Cremona, when, in 968, he went on an embassy to Constantinople. “But,” they indignantly declare, “the mad and silly Pope does not know that St. Constantine transferred the imperial scepter, all the senate and the whole Roman army hither, and that at Rome he left only vile creatures such as fishermen, pastrycooks, bird-catchers, bastards, plebeians and slaves.” Cf. Fortescue, op. cit., p. 94.

[338] Cf. Le Schisme Oriental du XI Siècle, p. 275 (by L. Brehier, Paris, 1899).

[339] Now that the crash had come “one asks oneself what else the Legates could have done. They had waited long enough, and, if ever a man clearly showed that he wanted schism, it was Cerularius. He had already excommunicated the Pope by taking his name off the diptychs. We should note that this is the only sentence that the Roman Church pronounced against the Eastern Communion. She has never excommunicated it as such nor the other patriarchs. If they lost her communion it was because they too, following Cerularius’ example, struck the Pope’s name from their diptychs.” Fortescue, op. cit., p. 185.

[340] Although Innocent III, preacher of the Crusade, promptly excommunicated the Crusaders for their perfidy and treachery, the Greeks, nevertheless, persisted in declaring that His Holiness was the real cause of their misfortunes.

[341] According to the custom that subsequently prevailed it was the Grand Vizier who, in the Sultan’s name, gave the berat to the newly appointed Patriarch. As to bishops-elect it was obligatory that they should receive their berat from the government before their consecration.

[342] Thus, during the seventy-five years between 1625 and 1700, there were no fewer than 50 patriarchs whose average tenure of office was a year and a half. Compare this with the long reign—seventy-two years—of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII whose average tenure of office was twenty-four years—just thirty-six times as long as that of the unfortunate Patriarchs in question.

[343] Hom. II in Ephesios.

[344] “The Holy Father,” as Mgr. Duchesne beautifully declares, “has put all his heart into it; I might almost say, he had put only his heart into it.” Op. cit., p. 41.

[345] “Eo vel magis quod non ingenti discrimine seiunguntur: imo, si pauca excipias, sic cetera consentimus, ut in ipsis catholici nominis vindiciis non raro ex doctrina, ex more, ex ritibus, quibus orientales utuntur, testimonia atque argumenta promanus.”

[346] Inferno XXVIII, 35.

[347] Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, pp. 2, 30 (London, 1861).

The testimony of Professor H. Gelzer, likewise a Protestant, is almost the same as that of Dean Stanley. Writing of the monastic establishments of the Orthodox Church he pertinently inquires: “While the Catholic Orders as teaching and nursing bodies have become an important element in the civilization of the nineteenth century, what have Athos, Sinai, Patmos or Megaspilion been doing? The Greeks often bitterly complain of the mighty progress of Catholic propaganda, but they must themselves admit that the best schools and hospitals in Turkey belong to the Catholic Orders.” Von Heiligen Berge und aus Makendonien, p. 2 (Leipsig, 1904).

[348] Das Testament Leos XIII, in Reden und Aufsätze, Vol. II, p. 279 (Geissen, 1904).

[349] Fortescue, op. cit., p. 432, 433.

[350] Psalms, xliv: 10, “Neque aliud fortasse mirabilius est,” declares the Sovereign Pontiff, “ad catholicitatis notam in Ecclesia Dei illustrandam, quam singulare quod ei præbent obsequium dispares cæremoniarum formæ nobilesque vestustatis linguæ, ex ipsa Apostolorum et Patrum consuetudine nobiliares; fere ad imitationem obsequii lectissimi quod Christi divino Ecclesiæ auctori, exhibitum est nascenti, quum Magi ex varii Orientis plagis devecti venerunt ... adorare eum.”

[351] St. Paul to the Ephesians, iv: 13.

[352] St. John’s Gospel, xvii: 20, 21.

[353] Jonah, iv: 11. Those “that knew not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left,” is supposed to refer to young children.

[354] Genesis x: 11.

[355] iii: 19.

[356] ii: 13–15.

[357] Anabasis, Bk. III, Chap. 4. Cf. also Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand, p. 139 et seq. (by W. F. Ainsworth, London, 1844).

[358] Charon, 23.

[359] Even Cicero, declares: “Et apud Herodotum, patrem historiæ ... sunt innumerabiles fabulæ.” De Legisbus Lib. I, Cap. I.

[360] Arabian writers, it is true, had agreed “during nine hundred years, in identifying the mounds on the east bank of the Tigris opposite Mosul with the ruins of Nineveh” but their views were so far from meeting with general acceptance that so late as 1843 the great French explorer, Botta, was convinced when he uncovered the wonderful palace of Sargon II, King of Assyria, B. C. 721–705, that the site of Nineveh was occupied by the ruins of Khorsabad. But the noted English investigator, Layard, “contrary to the teachings of Arabian and Syrian historians and local tradition,” was equally positive that “the ruins of Nineveh were buried under the mound of Nimroud,” which is twenty miles to the south of the actual site of the famous Assyrian capital which was so long the rival and eventually the conqueror of Babylon. Cf. By Nile and Tigris, Vol. II, p. 8 et seq., 15, 16 (by E. A. Wallis Budge, London, 1920).

[361] The Buried City of the East: Nineveh, Preface (London, 1851).

[362] Nineveh and Its Palaces. The Discoveries of Botta and Layard Applied to the Elucidation of Holy Writ, p. 1 et seq. (by J. Bonomi, London, 1852).

[363] “At the end of the seventeenth century, B.C., Asurbanipal’s sculptors at Nineveh were representing horses which the frieze of the Parthenon can hardly equal, and lions which no sculptor has ever surpassed in careful observations and truthful delineation.” The Ancient History of the Near East, p. 536 (by H. R. Hall, London, 1913).

[364] vi: 1.

[365] See his Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 342–345 (London, 1853); cf. also Hormuzd Rassam’s Asshur and the Land of the Nimrod, p. 31 (New York, 1897), which gives an account of the discovery of more tablets, among which were the famed Deluge tablets.

[366] Relaçam em que se tratam as guerras e grandes victorias que alcançou o grãde rey da Persia Xa Abbas do grão Turco Mahometto and seu Filho Amethe, pello Padre F. Antonio de Gouvea (Lisboa, 1611).

[367] Purchas His Pilgrimes, Part II, pp. 1533, 1534 (London, 1625).

[368] As to the signification of the strange, wedge-shaped character described by the noted Italian traveler, Pietro della Valle admits that he knows nothing. In the fifteenth chapter of his Viaggi he frankly declares: “E queste iscritzioni in que lingua e lettera siano non si sa perchè è caratere oggi ignoto.”

[369] Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique, p. 145 et seq. (London, 1638).

[370] Chardin became an English citizen and achieved such fame as a traveler that a tablet was dedicated to his memory in Westminster Abbey bearing the legend “Sir John Chardin—nomen sibi fecit eundo.”

[371] Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th Century, pp. 23, 24 (by H. V. Hilprecht, Philadelphia, 1903).

How Grotefend achieved such marvelous success when others, apparently more competent than he, had failed has been explained by the fact that “he early displayed a remarkable aptitude for the solution of riddles: a peculiar talent which he shared in common with Dr. Hincks, who also acquired great distinction as a cuneiform scholar.” The Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions, p. 169 (by A. J. Booth, London, 1902).

Dr. R. W. Rogers, in his instructive work, A History of Babylonia and Assyria, Vol. I, p. 61 (New York, 1915), referring to the same subjects, writes:

“It were difficult, if not impossible, to define the qualities of mind which must inhere in the decipherer of a forgotten language. He is not necessarily a great scholar, though great scholars have been successful decipherers. He may know but little of the languages that are cognate with the one whose secrets he is trying to unravel. He may, indeed, know nothing of them, as has several times been the case. But the patience, the persistence, the power of combination, the divine gift of insight, the historical sense, the feeling for archæological indications, these must be present, and all of these were present in the extraordinary man, Grotefend, who now attacked the problem that had baffled so many.”

[372] Hilprecht, op. cit., p. 71; cf. A Memoir of Major General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, pp. 143–148, 153–157 (by his brother, Canon George Rawlinson, London, 1898); Booth, op. cit., pp. 106–114.

[373] Although it was supposed that this prize, awarded by so learned a body as the French Institute, would be tantamount to une sanction qui devrait dissiper toutes les susceptibilités, many remained as skeptical as ever and continued “to decry a language in which one can never know if a syllable is ideographic or phonetic, and, when phonetic, which of two or three different values it may have in that place.” Cf. A. J. Booth, op. cit., p. 416.

[374] Op. cit., pp. 118, 119.

[375] New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land, p. 10 (by B. T. Evetts, New York).

[376] The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 110 (by M. Jastrow, Philadelphia, 1915).

[377] A few years before his death, when presiding at the commencement exercises of the College of Dole, in the Department of the Jura in which he was born and brought up, Pasteur told his youthful audience: “When one has studied much, one comes back to the faith of a Breton peasant; as to myself, had I studied more I should have the faith of a Breton peasant-woman.” The Ave Maria, February 14, 1920.