BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 35 



to the Greeks is this. Concerning a plant 

 called bukdsidj the author adds : " This 

 plant was brought to the climate of Babylon 

 from the country of Ephesus, a city of the 

 Greeks." It is astonishing that Dr. Chwol- 

 son was not struck by such a passage, 

 and that he has ventured to maintain that 

 Ephesus could have been mentioned in a 

 Babylonian document of the 12th century 

 before Christ. It is of little importance 

 whether Ephesus might have existed before 

 that epoch, and even before the colony of 

 Androcles, the son of Codrus, to whom its 

 origin is ordinarily attributed. Criticism 

 which entrenches itself obstinately in pos- 

 sibilities, careless of thus accumulating 

 against itself improbabilities, is undoubtedly 

 irrefutable ; but it is no longer criticism. 

 The difficulty which results to Dr. Chwol- 

 son by these allusions to the Greeks, which 

 are found in " The Nabathaean Agriculture," 

 becomes the more grave, from the fact, 

 that the Greeks are mentioned not only 



1 Page 89. 



