Chap. I.] 



THE GREEKS. 



551 



torical notice of Ceylon that has come down to us ^ as 

 the memoirs of Alexander's Indian officers, on whose 



size of a coimtiy of wliicli Onesi- 

 critus aud Nearclius had j ust brought 

 home accounts so surprising ; aud 

 that he should speak of it with con- 

 fidence as an island, although the 

 question of its insularity remained 

 somewhat imcertain at a much later 

 period. 



' Fabeiciijs, in the supplemental 

 volume of his Codex Pseudepu/raphi 

 veterii Testcnnenti, Hamb., a.d. 1723, 

 says, ^' Samarita, Genesis, viii. 4, tra- 

 dit Noae arcam requievisse super 

 montem 3-/)t Serendib sive Zeylau." — 

 P. 30; aud it was possibly upon 

 this authority that it has been stated 

 in KiTXo's Cijdopcpdia of Biblical 

 Literature, vol. i. p. 199, as " a curi- 

 ous circmiistance that in Genesis, 

 viii. 4, the Samaritan Pentateuch 

 has Sarandib, the Arabic name of 

 Ceylon," instead of Ararat, as tiie 

 resting place of the ark. "Were this 

 true, it would give a triimiph to spe- 

 culation, and sen'e by a single but 

 in-esistible proof to dissipate doubt, 

 if there were any, as to the early 

 intercom'se between the Hebrews aud 

 that island as the comitry fi'om which 

 Solomon drew his triennial supplies 

 of ivory, apes, and peacocks (1 Kings, 

 X. 22). Assimiing the coiTectness 

 of the opinion that the Samaritan 

 Pentateuch is as old as the separa- 

 tion of the tribes in the reign of 

 Rehoboam, b. c. 975-958, this would 

 not only furnish a notice of Cej'lon 

 fai' anterior to any existing autho- 

 rity ; but would assign an antiquity 

 irreconcilable with historical evidence 

 as to its comparatively modem name 

 of " Serendib." The interest of the 

 discovery would still be extraordinary, 

 even if the Samaritan Pentateuch 

 be referred to the later date assigoied 

 to it by Frankel, who adduces evi- 

 dence to show that its writer had 

 made use of the Septuagint. The 

 author of the article in the BihUcal 

 Cyclopccdia is however in error. 

 Every copy of the Samaritan Pen- 

 tateuch, both those printed in the 

 Paris Pohjijlot and in that of Walton, 



as well as the five MSS. in the Bod- 

 leian Library at Oxford, which con- 

 tain the eighth chapter of Genesis, 

 together with several collations of the 

 Hebrew and Samaritan text, make 

 no mention of Sarandib, but all ex- 

 hibit the word " Ararat " in its pro- 

 per place in the eighth chapter of 

 Genesis. "Ararat" is also foimd 

 correctly in Blatney's Pentat. 

 Ilebrceo-Samarit., Oxford, 1790. 



But there is another work in 

 which ''Sarandib" does appear in 

 the verse alluded to. Pieteo della 

 Yalle, in that most interesting letter 

 in which he describes the manner 

 in which he obtained at Damascus, 

 in A. D. 1616, a manuscript of the 

 Pentateuch on parchment in the 

 Hebrew language, but written in 

 Samaritan characters ; relates that 

 along with it he procured another on 

 paper, in which not only the letters, 

 but the language, was Samaritan — 

 "die non solo e scritto con lettere -« 

 Samaritane, ma in lingua anche 

 propria de' Samaritan!, che e im 

 misto della Ebraica e della Caldea." 

 — Viagcfi, S)-c., Lett, da Aleppo, 15. 

 di Giug-no a.d. 1616. 



The first of these two manuscripts 

 is the Samaritan Pentateuch, the 

 second is the " Samaritan version " of 

 it. The author and age of the second 

 are alike imlinown ; but it cannot, in 

 the opinion of Frankel, date earlier 

 than the second century, or a still 

 later period. (Davison's Biblical Cri- 

 ticism, vol. i. ch. XV. p. 242.) Like 

 all ancient targmns, it bears in some 

 particulars the character of a para- 

 phrase ; and amongst other departures 

 fi-om the literal text of the original 

 Hebrew, the ti-anslator, following the 

 example of Onkelos and others, has 

 substituted modern geographical 

 names for some of the more ancient, 

 such as Gerizim for Mount Ebal 

 (Deut. xxvii. 4), Paneas for Dan, and 

 Ascalon for Gerar ; and in the 4th 

 verse of the viiith chapter of Genesis 

 he has made the ark to rest" upon 

 tlie mountains of Sarandib," Oukeloe 



