92 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 



in the first centuries of our era. 1 The Jews 

 displayed a literary activity which, beyond 

 doubt, did not remain shut up in the bosom 

 of their communities. The Gnostic sects, 

 Perates, Elchasaites, etc., developed them- 

 selves with a boldness and liberty which 

 mark at least an awakened intellect. The 

 wrestling of the Syrian Christians — St. 

 Ephraim, the Syrian, 2 for instance — against 

 the Chaldaeans, presumes that Christianity 

 found there the most formidable resistance 

 which it had yet encountered. Finally, I 

 do not doubt that an attentive analysis of 

 Greek manuscripts on astrology, on geneth- 

 liacs, etc., made with a preoccupation of 

 ideas awakened by the labours of Dr. 

 Chwolson, may show this result, that our 



1 On the various Schools of Babylonia, and on the Babylonian 

 sages, Cidenas, Naborianus, Sudanis, Seleucus, see Strabo (XVI. 

 i. 6) ; Pliny (VI. xxx. 6) ; the Kitdb el-fihrist (Zeitschrift der 

 Morgenl. Gesellschaft, 1859, p. 628) ; the work before cited of 

 Said (pp. 21-22 of the MS. of M. Schefer). See also Stanley, 

 Histoire de la Philosophic Orient., p. 14 ff. Brucker, Historia 

 Critica Philosophia?, I. p. 130 ff. Unfortunately the dates put us 

 completely at fault here. 



2 Bp. Jeremy Taylor hence calls Ephraim, the Syrian, the De- 

 struction of Heresies. — Translator's note. 



