23 



of polytheism, and the very names that are thus shown to be connected 

 with the attributes of the Divine power, seem to confirm what we 

 learn from the Biblical source. We know very well, as the author of the 

 paper has mentioned, that at one time, at a later stage of pantheism, 

 it was the custom to worship the moral virtues, such as were symbolised 

 in the well-known Temple of Concord, and in the other temples and 

 altars which we find in the later periods of Boman idolatry erected to 

 Pietas and Fides, and so forth the moral attributes in that later stage 

 being personified and made into deities. This is an illustration of the same 

 kind of process, and as the author of the paper remarked, there are one 

 or two traces of this in remote antiquity, which shows that the attributes 

 of virtue and strength were by the pagans identified with separate beings 

 by whom they were supposed to be personified those beings being consti- 

 tuted into distinct divinities, representing what really from the first were 

 revealed as the attributes of the one true God. (Hear, hear.) These few 

 thoughts have occurred to me in considering this paper ; but it is one that is 

 so fruitful of subjects for reflection, that I am sure those who have heard it 

 read must have had many other thoughts suggested to them, and it is now 

 open to anyone wishing to do so, to express his opinions upon any of the 

 points that have been touched on. 



Mr. W. GRIFFITH. The learned lecturer hastraced many of the words he 

 has mentioned to an Egyptian origin. He referred to the word " Asir," 

 and connected it with " Osiris," another form of the Hebrew "WJ?, the 

 enricher. The readers of our great epic poet may remember the lines : 



"Nor did Israel scape 



The infection, when their borrow'd gold composed 

 The calf in Oreb ; and the rebel king 

 Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan." MILTON, b. i. 



The calf, Apis, was the emblem of, or sacred to (Diodorus and 

 Straho, b. xvii.), Osiris, and Egyptian worship was repeated in after 

 times in Jewish history. Another etymology quoted by the learned 

 lecturer was that of "Bath-Sheba." Here I differ from him and agree 

 with Mr. Girdlestone that the word " Sheba " is derived from " Sheba," 

 an oath, rather than from the words " Sbat " and " Seb," and for this 

 reason we find " Beer-Sheba," the well of the oath the well at which 

 Abraham entered into covenant with some of the surrounding tribes. If, 

 then, we have "Sheba," signifying oath, and "Beer-Sheba" meaning the 

 well of the oath, it seems that we have ground to say that " Sheba " in 

 " Bath-Sheba " would also be of the same origin. Another interesting word 

 that has been cited is the word " Sekhem," which means " possession." 

 Being a barrister, I have been struck with the appropriateness to time 

 and place of the juristical ideas which occur in the Book of Genesis. 

 There is no doubt that that history does to a legal mind recall the period 

 of what we may call the law of Nature when possession seems to have 

 been, to use a homely phrase, nine parts of the law before society was 



