170 THE BIRTHPLACE OF ANCIENT 



mencement of the historic period, bore their names, or could in some 

 way be identified with them or their descendents. In accordance with 

 this view, Javan, the fourth son of Japheth, is represented as moving 

 through hundreds of miles of an uninhabited wilderness, and over 

 rivers and seas, to Greece, the abode of the lonians ; settling his eldest 

 son Elisha in Elis, sending Tarshish, the second, far off to Tartessus 

 in Spain, and Kittim, the third, to Macedonia, nearer at hand, while 

 Dodanim, the youngest, either founds the oracle of Dodona, or, the 

 initial daleth of his name being transmuted to resh, emigrates to 

 Ehodes. For this absurd trifling with history there is not the slightest 

 authority in the language of Scripture. Many reasons may be given 

 for not adopting this crude theory of the origin of nations and the 

 peopling of the countries of the earth. One that will suggest itself 

 to any practical mind is the unlikelihood of small families, in the world's 

 second infancy, finding a reason for emigrating to any great distance 

 from the original centre, to which they were bound by mutual ties. 

 Even allowing that very early migrations did take place, we have the 

 example of Abraham (and even his was a very peculiar case), together 

 with the testimony of history in all ages, even to the present day, as 

 our authorities for saying that the progress of the emigrants from one 

 seat to another must have been very gradual, and with long periods of 

 time intervening. The first migration we do read of is not northward 

 through a wild and inhospitable and difficult tract, where but little 

 provision for the way could be found, but southward into a warm and 

 fertile region, watered by the Tigris and Euphrates. Every conside- 

 ration would prompt the small band that set out from Armenia to 

 preserve its unity • and the facts that they feared lest they should " be 

 scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth," and that God is 

 represented as saying, '' Behold the people is one and they have all 

 one language," tend to prove that this unity was maintained until the 

 dispersion of Babel. ^^ At Babel a dispersion certainly did take place. 

 Are we then to decide that from Mesopotamia at this point of time 

 men carried to their respective settlements the mythology, arts, litera- 

 ture, etc., that we find common to so many nations ? I answer em- 

 phatically. No ! And here I take objection, as I have hinted above, 

 to the form in which Faber puts his conclusion. " Single place" and 

 "single community" suit the times before the dispersion of Babel 

 very well ', but they do not suit the facts upon which Faber founds his 



93 Genesis, xL, 4. 6. 



