BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 91 



study, to the twelfth century of our era; 1 

 what we read of science and philosophy in 

 Arabian historians, Said of Toledo, 2 Mo- 

 hammed Ibn Ishak, Jemal-eddm Ibn al- 

 Kifti, Ibn Abi-Oceibia, Abul Pharagius 

 on the origin of various branches of know- 

 ledge, and concerning the lives of certain 

 philosophers who have become subjects of 

 fiction, together with the Mussulman legends 

 of Edris, identified with Enoch, Hermes, 

 Otarid ; a sort of scientific mythology re- 

 ceived by all learned Arabs, and which 

 is not of Moslem origin ; all proceed, I 

 maintain, evidently from the same homoge- 

 neous school, sui generis, the writings of 

 which were composed in an Aramaic dia- 

 lect. 3 A host of facts prove that Babylon 

 was the theatre of a great upheaving of ideas 



1 See the leanied work of M. Chwolson : Die Ssabier und der 

 Ssabismus, St. Petersbiirgh, 1856. 



2 This source, less known than the others, will appear one of the 

 most important, when M. Schefer has published the Kitdb tabactith 

 ul-umetn, of which he possesses a manuscript, the only complete 

 one, I believe, in Europe. 



3 Journal Asiatique, March-April, 1854, p. 263 ; August-Sept., 

 1854, pp. 181, 187-188 ; Bar Hebrsei Chron. Syriacum, pp. 176-177 

 of the text; pp. 180-181 of the translation. 



