PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 597 



uous. As in other cases, incidents in the life of the national deity 

 form its first subject-matter how God created various things on 

 successive days and rested on the seventh day. Accounts of his 

 personal doings characterize the next books, and are combined 

 with accounts of the doings of Adam and the patriarchs bio- 

 graphical accounts. In what we are told of Abraham, Isaac, and 

 Jacob, we see biography dominant and history unobtrusive. But 

 with the transition from a nomadic to a settled life, and the 

 growth of a nation, the historical element comes to the front. 

 Doubtless for a long time the genealogies and the leading events 

 were matters of common traditional knowledge ; though we may 

 fairly assume that the priest- class or cultured class were those 

 who especially preserved such knowledge. Later times give some 

 evidence of the connection, as instance these sentences from 

 Kuenen and Neubauer. 



" In the eighth century B. o. the prophet of Jahveh has become a 

 writer." 



" Upon their return from Babylon, Ezra, called ' the skilled scribe,' made 

 disciples who were called sopherim, ' scribes,' and whose business it was to 

 multiply the copies of the Pentateuch and to interpret it. ' Scribe ' and 

 scholar' in those days were synonymous." 



A few relevant facts are afforded by the ancient books of India. 

 Describing some of their contents Weber says: 



History " can only fittingly be considered as a branch of poetry," both 

 on account of form and on account of subject-matter. 



Kalhana, who wrote a history of Kashmir, in 12th cent. a. d. was ''more 

 poet than historian." 



41 In some princely houses, family records, kept by the domestic priests, 

 appear to have been preserved." 



From ancient Egyptian inscriptions come various evidences 

 of these relationships. How naturally the biographico-historical 

 element of literature grows out of primitive worship we see in the 

 fact allied to a fact above named concerning the Abyssinians, 

 that in an Egyptian tomb there was given in the ante-room an 

 account of the occupant's life ; and, naturally, that which was 

 done on a small scale with the undistinguished man was done on 

 a large scale with the distinguished man. We read in Brugsch 

 that 



The Eoyal gods of the Egyptians, who "are referred to as kings," "have 

 their individual history, which the holy scribes wrote down in the books of 

 the temples." 

 Here are kindred passages from Bunsen and Duncker : 



Diodorus says "the priests had in their sacred books, transmitted from 

 the olden time, and handed down by them to their successors in office, writ- 

 ten descriptions of all their kings." " In these an account is given of every 

 king of his physical powers and disposition, and of the exploits of each in 

 the order of time." 



Priests daily read to the king accounts of the achievements of distin- 



