ANTIQUITY OP WRITING. S?3 



ClIALUFANS. 



WITH respect to the claim of the. Chaldeans, (he Jews, Arabians, 

 and Indians, have it by tradition, that the Egyptianswere instruct 

 ed in all their knowledge by Abraham, who was a Chaldean. These 

 traditions deserve, at least, as much credit as any traditions of the 

 Egyptians, however credited and adopted by the Greeks ; because 

 they are, in some degree, confirmed by most of the western writers, 

 who ascribe the inventions of arithemetic and astronomy to the 

 Clialdeans *. Josephus, lib. i. cap. 9. is very express that the 

 Egyptians were ignorant of the sciences of arithmetic and astro, 

 no my before they were instructed by Abraham ; and it is probable 

 that the relation of the Jewish historian, may have induced many 

 succeeding writers to attribute the invention of letters to that cele. 

 brated patriarch +. Sir Isaac Newton admits that letters were 

 known in the Abrnhamic line for some centuries before Moses. 



Though the cosmogony of the Chaldeans and Babylonians is 

 deeply involved in fables, as is the case with all nnci< nt nations, 

 yet they evince that they cultivated the sciences in the most remote 

 times. 



The Chaldaic letters are derived from the ancient Hebrew, or 

 Samaritan, which are the same, or nearly so, with the old Pheni- 

 cian |. The prophet Ezra is supposed to have exchanged the old 

 Hebrew characters, for the more beautiful and commodious Chaldee, 

 which are still in use. 



Berosus, the most ancient Chaldean historian, was born (as he 

 tells us himself) during the minority of Alexander the great; he 

 wrote in three books, the Chaldean and Babylonish history, which 

 comprehended that of the Medes. He is allowed to have been a 

 very respectable writer, but he does not mention that he believed 

 the Chaldeans to have been the inventors of letters . 



ce syst<me, et un nouvel appui pour le dernier sentiment. Diet. Dipl. torn. i. 

 p. 416. 



* After the flood, all mankind lived together in Chaldea, till the davsof PHfg. 

 See Univ. Hist. vol. iv. p. 332, 375 ; and Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology of 

 Ancient kingdoms, London, 1728, 4to. The tower of Babel, and the city of 

 Babylon, were in the province which is now called Erica Arabic. 



i Abraham did not retire from Ur, in Chaldea, to settle at liurnn in Canaan, 

 till he was upwards of .seventy years old. 



J Univ. Hist. vol. ill. p. 217- 



^ See an account of him and his work Fin the Univ. Hist. vol. i. prrf. p. IS, 

 and p. 29, SO ; and the substance of th fragments of his history that ore still 

 remaiuing, at p. 192 195. 



i.j 



