Sanscrit Writing and Language. 143 



Where the two historians differ, the preference, as I conceive, is manifestly 

 due to the representations of the older, as he lived nearer to the time of the 

 events he records ; but as it has been attempted to enlist Scripture on the side of 

 the younger, I must observe that the sacred volume decides nothing between 

 them. It has been urged that Xenophon's character of Cyrus being the more 

 favorable one, is that which is more entitled to credit ; because Isaiah calls this 

 conqueror the anointed of the Lord (Is. xlv, 1), that is, his appointed one for A 

 particular service. But in the third verse after, the Prophet states that Cyrus 

 knew not the true God ; and consequently he did not act from any principle of 

 obedience to the Almighty. Surely bad men, as well as good, are instruments in 

 the hands of Providence, whose ends they may be promoting, when they are least 

 influenced by any such intention, and are least conscious of their actions having 

 such a tendency. The soldiei's who were engaged under Cyrus in the service 

 in question, namely, in the taking of Babylon, are in like manner called by the 

 same Prophet, speaking in the name of the'Lord, " my sanctified ones,"* — 

 Isaiah xiii, 3 ; and just in a similar point of view, and when destined for a similar 

 employment (the chastisement of a rebellious people), Nebuchadnezzar is termed 

 by another Prophet, " my servant," — Jer. xxv, 9. Yet it evidently would be 

 quite unwarrantable hence to infer, that the individuals composing the immense 

 armies which on the above occasion besieged Babylon, were all saints, or that 

 Nebuchadnezzar was a righteous man. Another argument brought forward in 

 favor of the later historian, is founded on the prophecy of Isaiah, in which he 

 formally and expressly denounces against Babylon its siege by the Medes and 

 Persians, and obscurely alludes to its capture through stratagem, and its 

 spoliation by those people ;f — a prophecy which was in every particular fulfilled; 



* The original meaning of H^Tp, the root of the Hebrew word here employed, is " to separate" ; 

 from which is derived its secondary meaning of " to sanctify." The primary signification of the 

 term seems more appropriate to the use made of it by the Prophet in this place ; where he speaks of 

 those who, in the counsels of the Almighty, were set apart as the agents destined to bring about a 

 certain event. 



t The prophecy above referred to, is contained in the following passage of the Bible. " A 

 grievous vision is declared unto me ; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler 

 spoileth. Go up, O Elam ; besiege, O Media." — Isaiah, xxi, 2. The obscurity in which this pas- 

 sage has been hitherto involved, is, I submit, in a great measure removed by a just view of the 

 character of Cyrus. It is from a misconception on this point that commentators have, in opposition 



