58 



BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 



bylonian or Syrian origin, which, bear the 

 name of a patriarch, and round which are 

 grouped a greater or less number of fol- 

 lowers. "The Book of Nabathsean Agri- 

 culture" is of a period when these writings 

 possessed full authority, and this explains 

 why the Jews, who furnished the originals 

 of all these fictions, are not mentioned in 

 the work of Kuthami. The apocryphal tra- 

 ditions of which I am speaking were, in 

 fact, in such general circulation, that they 

 passed at Babylon for Babylonian, in the 

 same manner as the Arabs, who, when re- 

 lating their fables of Edris and Lokman, 

 never acknowledge that they owe them to 

 the Jews, but always seem to forget or ig- 

 nore the fact. 1 



If we look at the general character of 

 "The Book of Nabathaean Agriculture," in- 



1 It is Dr. Chwolson himself ("Die Ssabier," t. i., 1. i., c. 13) 

 who has most clearly shown how the Jewish patriarchs were adopted 

 hy the Sahians, the Harranians, and other sects of the East. Dr. 

 Chwolson describes, elsewhere (pp. 186, 187 of his new memoir), 

 a very curious passage of a Jewish apocryphal tale, fathered on 

 Noah, which has the most complete affinity to those of the Na- 

 bathsean text. 



