690 ORIENTAL SCHOLARSHIP DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



tliein whicli made couimuuicatioii, and more particularly iree intellec- 

 tual iutercourse, entirely impossible. 



If therefore it seemed that some of these ancient nations shared 

 certain ideas, beliefs, or customs in common, the answer always was 

 that they could not have borrowed one from the other, because there 

 was really no channel through which they could have connuunicated, or 

 borrowed from each other by means of a ratioiial and continuous con- 

 verse. Thanks to the more recent researches of Oriental scholars, this 

 is no longer so. One of the tirst and one of tlie strongest proofs that 

 there was, in very ancient times, a very active intellectual intercourse 

 between Aryan and Semitic nations, is the Greek Alphabet. The Greeks 

 never made any secret of their having borrowed their letters from 

 Phenician sclujol masters. They called their letters Phenician, as we 

 call our numerical figures Arabic, whde the Aral^s called them Indian. 

 The very name of Alphabet in Greek is the best proof that at the time 

 when the Greeks were the pupils of Phenician writing-masters, the 

 secondary names of the Semitic letters, Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, had 

 already been accei)ted. Originally the Aleph was the picture not of a 

 bull, but of an eagle; Beth not of a house, but of another bird; Gimel 

 not of a camel, but of a vessel with a handle; Daleth of a stretched 

 out hand. This iutercourse between Phenicians and Greeks must have 

 taken place previous to the beginning of any written literature in 

 Greece, previous therefore to the seventh century at least. When avb 

 speak of Greeks and Phenicians in general, we must guard against 

 thinking of w hole nations, or of large numbers. The work of humanity 

 in the past, more e\'en than in the j)resent, was carried on by the few, 

 not by the many, by what Disraeli called "' the men of light and lead- 

 ing," the so-called Path-makers ot the ancient world. They represent 

 unknown millions, standing behind them, as a Commander-in-chief rep- 

 resents a whole army that follows him. The important point is that in 

 the alphabet we have before us a tangible document, attesting a real 

 communication between these leaders of progress and civilization in 

 the East and in the West, a bridge between Phenicia and Greece, 

 between Semitic and Aryan people. The name of the letter Alpha in 

 the Greek alphabet is a more irresistible i)roof of Phenician influence 

 than all the legends about Kadmos and Thebes, about a Phenician 

 Herakles or a Phenician Aphrodite. It is strange that not one of the 

 classical scholars who have written on the traces of Phenician influence 

 in the religion and mythology of Greece should have availed himself 

 of the Greek alphabet as the most palpable proof of a real and most 

 intimate intercourse between the Phenicians and the early inhabitants 

 of Greece. 



But their discoveries have oi>ened even wider vistas. It was one of 

 the most brilliant achievements, due to the genius of the Vicomte de 

 Rouge to have shown that, though they discovered many things, the 

 Phenicians did not discover the letters of the alphabet. Broken arches 



