NOTICE OF

Jewish, Oriental, and Classical Antiquities; containing Illustrations of the Scriptures and Classical Records, from Oriental sources. By the REV. DANIEL GUILFORD WAIT, LL. B. F. A. S. Rector of Blagdon, Somerset; and of St. John's Coll. Camb. Octavo. 12s. Cambridge. 1823.

FROM various articles contributed by Mr. Wait, and published in different numbers of this Journal, our readers must already be well acquainted with that gentleman's ingenuity, extensive erudition, and multifarious acquirements in languages; qualifications most essentially necessary to those who undertake a work of such difficulty and magnitude as this which we announce, and of which the nature and object are sufficiently explained in its title above given. But as such a task could not possibly be accomplished within the narrow compass of one octavo volume, our author avows his intention of continuing it through successive portions; each, however, being, with respect to matter, independent of any other. This first part contains general parallels, illustrating from Eastern writings many points of biblical and classical antiquity, and a demonstration of the coincidence subsisting between those different departments of study. In the subsequent volumes will be comprised disquisitions on detached subjects, and an examination of those Greek authors, who have left any information respecting the history and customs of eastern nations. In his preface (p. ii.), Mr. W. rejects the opinion entertained by some, that Hebrew was a divine language, spoken in Paradise, and taught to Adam by angels; he does not think that Greek and Latin names should, in general, be derived from it; those who, like Bryant, suppose it antecedent to the confusion at Babel, and devise means for its preservation after that event, have attended, says Mr. W., more to fancy than to truth: from the phraseology of Genesis xi., he believes that whatever language was spoken before the confusion, ceased altogether to exist after that catastrophe; or was so changed and so perfectly "confounded," that it became unintelligible to those who had formerly spoken it. From the Mosaic words, he therefore concludes, that the confusion which befel one part of the human race, happened also to every other.

"We inquire not," adds he, "by what method this circumstance was effected, but merely insist on the obvious signification of the biblical narrative." (P. iii.) Moses does not particularly designate any one of the three great families, to the exclusion of the other two: his words refer absolutely to all the earth; and whether we translate them with Bryant, "every province or region," or adopt the received version, the argument continues good. We must not imagine that merely relates to the pronunciation,

Because, if that alone was confounded, the primitive tongue remained unchanged, and we are still at a loss to account for the variety of tongues which prevailed in the earlier times. A difference of pronunciation would not be admitted as a fair reason to be assigned for the discrepancy between the cognate Chaldee, or Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Hebrew: the distinction of languages must, therefore, be traced to some other cause; and if we object to the received sense of the Mosaic history, we shall find it difficult to produce one on which we can depend. (P. iv.)

But our author thinks that the assertion in Joshua xxiv, 2, is sufficient to resolve the question.

At all events (adds he) the Hebrew cannot exhibit as good a title to priority as the ancient Chaldee. Abraham's original residence was in Chaldæa-the term, or the descendant of Eber, was first applied to him; and when he removed from thence, we find that many of his household were foreigners; is it contrary, then, to probability, to conjecture that the language spoken in his family in process of time was styled Hebrew, or that of the descendant of Eber, in contradistinction to the unmixed tongue that was in use in his native country? Had the Hebrew been the original language, Moses would doubtless have recorded it as such in his history of this event. I conceived it necessary to introduce these remarks, as my reason for abandoning the modern custom of tracing foreign words to Hebrew roots, many of which have a similar, and often a far more satisfactory sense in the Arabic. If we affix mere simplicity to our ideas of originality, the Malay and Indo-Chinese dialects will give to us a clearer conception of such a language, as we may imagine Adam to have spoken; but he who seeks to find even a vestige of the Adamitical or Noetic tongues, will expend his labor to no good purpose. (P. vi.)

Although grammatical and verbal connexion cannot be discovered between the Hebrew, and the Greek and Latin, yet between these and the Sanscrita it is found in an extraordinary degree; and an analogy that could not have been fortuitous appears in the names and attributes of gods, theological legends, and religious rites, in each of the three. We can even recover, in the Sanscrita, roots which are obsolete or lost in the Greek or Latin, and which, when formed into tenses according to the established rules, exhibit a resemblance that the most careless observer will VOL. XXVIII. CI. JI. NO. LVI. T

recognise. Mr. W., therefore, resorts to the Sauscrita for the elucidation of any term which the Greek writers describe as barbarous or foreign, and of eastern origin. (P. xi.)

Our learned author notices the paucity of materials which caused the failure of De Fleury, and others who attempted to give a general view of the patriarchal ages; but he regards it as an established fact, that the senior members, and the heads of families, administered the government. Abraham is called "a Prince of God," W. The ancient form of government is mentioned by Aristotle (Polit. 1. 1.), πᾶσα γὰρ οἰκία βασιλεύ εται ὑπὸ τοῦ πρεσβυτάτου, &c. Such was the practice among several barbarous tribes, as we learn from Herodotus and Strabo, and among the Arabs, according to Mss. now extant. (P. 7.) The study of genealogies may be considered as prevalent in those early times: this appears from the book of Genesis, from Arabic Tarikhs or chronicles, from Hesiod's enumeration of gods, in his Theogony, and may be inferred from Homer's catalogue of ships. (P. 9.) Mr. W. regards the pillars of Seth, Hermes Trismegistus, and the like, as means employed to commemorate historical facts, in the hieroglyphics with which they were covered; a kind of "picture description" which seems to have existed in most countries at some period: with this may be connected the origin of idolatry itself, according to several eastern authors, for the portraits or images of deceased friends were venerated in Persia with divine honors by their posterity, as the Ms. Zinat ôttawarikh relates. Although Strabo declares Moses to have been one of the Egyptian priests, and the Egyptians ancestors of the Jews (an incorrect opinion adopted by other writers,-see Clemens Alexandr. Strom. v. p. 670.), yet the correspondence between Hebrew and Egyptian antiquities must not be referred, says Mr. W., to the period of Jewish servitude in Egypt, but should be traced back as far as the patriarchal system. (P. 14.) Michaëlis has discussed with much learning, and at considerable length, the office of the Goël, which appears to have existed before the time of Moses. It was connected with the general religion, and he who became Goël (2) conceived it necessary to avenge any homicide or murder, or any disgrace attached to his tribe or family -a circumstance which caused many instances of implacable revenge, and has been traced to the first age, because the Lord said, "whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold" (Gen. iv. 15.-See also the story of Rebecca, Gen. xxvii. 42, 45.) Such an institution Mr. W. discovers in the classic page of Eschylus (Agam. 69.) oйê' úжоxλeίwv, out'

Unoλeißwv, &c.; and (1430.) où TOUTOV Ex yns, &c.; and (1518.) πάτροθεν δὲ συλλήπτωρ γένοιτ' ἂν ἀλάστωρ, where the Goël is mentioned in unequivocal language; and yet more distinctly in Electra's address to the Chorus at her father's tomb :

ΗΛ. Πότερα δικαστὴν ἢ δικηφόρον λέγεις ;

ΧΟ. 'Απλώς τι φράζουσ', ὅστις ἀνταποκτενεῖ.—Choeph. 117. See also Choëph. 962. In Euripides we find him under the undisguised name of ó Táopos: and Sophocles (Elect. 244.) represents this system of retribution as the basis of all religion: si yag ó μèv lavav, &c. (See also Sophoc. Trach. 893.) Mr. W. very ingeniously traces this subject among the Arabs and Persians then notices the piacular qualities of water in cases of blood-shedding (p. 26.)—then the rites of atonement or purification-compensation or fines for blood-cities and edifices that yielded refuge-altars, pillars, Egyptian pyramids, consecrated groves, and stones, the reverence for which appears to have pervaded every nation of the world. (P. 39.) We cannot within our present limits do justice to Mr. Wait's remarks on primitive caves, the earliest habitations, temples, and sepulchres of men—the rites of mourning for the dead, such as clipping or shaving the hair and beard, a ceremony of unfathomable antiquity-for "every head shall be bald, and every hair clipped," says Jeremiah (xlviii.); and we read in Homer (Il. V. 141.)

Στὰς ἀπάνευθε πυρῆς ξανθὴν ἀπεκείρατο χαίτην·

and the Egyptian priests had an analogous custom (see Herodot. Euterpe 35.) The practice of washing, anointing and shrouding the dead-the libations of wine the circumambulation of the tomb, which is described in Sanscrit writings, was adopted by the old Persians, according to Dr. Hyde, and appears among the earliest rites of the Jews, as we learn from Buxtorf.-Circumcision, evidently ante-Mosaic from the history of Abraham, was practised in Egypt and Ethiopia at an early period-was in use among the African Troglodytes, the Colchi, Arabs, and other Eastern nations.The word dog applied as a term of contempt or reproach, the importance of night and the changes of the moon in religious worship, the feet uncovered during prayer, the uncleanness of swine's flesh, the veneration paid to oxen, sheep, ichneumons, dogs, cats, and hawks-to the ibis, lepidotus, oxyrinchus, serpents, and other creatures-ablutions and purifications, salt, sacred oil, embroidery, phylacteries, crowns and garlands, bells, the various names of God, early ideas of mediation between God and man by means of a Redeemer,-the Osol aλeğixaxos, Dii Averrunci, Dii Medioxumi, the 'Αγαθοδαίμων, the multiform ἐπιφάνειαι οἱ

Jupiter, Pallas, &c., the Furuhers of the ancient Persians, the Beous μeoitas of Chrysippus (on the Mithraic cave), the Avataras of India;-all these afford to our author an ample field for the display of his learning and ingenuity, besides a variety of other subjects, equally interesting to the biblical student, the antiquary, and the philologer, but of which our readers must be contented with little more than a slight indication: such as, the anathemas against Typhon, the painting or smearing of idols with a red color, the manner of performing covenants in ancient times, the mystical use of the numbers three and seven, the musical instruments employed on sacred occasions,-the Urim and Thummim, which Mr. Wait conjectures to have been known before the time of Moses, and connected in some manner with the cherubic symbols, the modes of divination, the cherubim, their symbolical tendency, and the imitations of them throughout various nations, the Teraphim, the perpetual fire, sacred months and days, sacrifices, festivals, the Dionysiacs mentioned by Strabo, Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius, and the exclamation used in them, ΕΥΟΙ ΣΑΒΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΤΤΗΣ ΑΤΤΗΣ ΤΗΣ, words which Strabo refers to an Oriental origin, and Mr. Wait would thus express in Sanscrit, "Aho! Siva! Isa! Ad'hisa! Adye seva!" and translates," Hail, O Siva! Lord, supreme Lord! Salutation to the first Existent!"-the solar rites, Bacchus, the mysteries, Corybantes, Cabiri, satyrs, ordeals, offerings to the dead, longevity; the abrupt and hurried manner discernible in all ancient poetry when the acts of a deity are described or his praises recited, as in some of the Jewish prophets, the song of Moses, after the destruction of the Egyptians (Exod. xv. 3-10.) the

song of Deborah, the choral parts of Eschylus and Euripides, &c. the liberality and hospitality of early ages, Deucalion's flood, the Edenic tree, wives and concubines, the practice of desponsation, the ox treading out corn, the rash vow of Jephtha and of Idomeneus, the sacrifice of Isaac and of Iphigenia, the lustre on Moses's face when he descended from Mount Sinai, the digging of wells, the dignity arising from a number of children, the punishment of stoning, the mode of exchange by flocks, herds, metals, &c., Aaron's rod that budded, Moses's rod, the Pythian δαφνή and the τηρὸν ἱεροῦ ῥάβδον, mentioned in the ̔Ικέτ. of Eschylus (263.); the sceptre as a badge of authority, the foreign origin of the Egyptian, Phrygian, Phoenician, and Babylonian mysteries, according to Epiphanius, who pretends that they were introduced among those nations by Io, or Isis, in her wanderings. Thus, says Mr. Wait, (p. 295.) may be explained the legends of Osiris and Hercules migrating from place to