406 ROD NOT EMPLOYED—REASONS 
of, or the “ cultural associations ’’ in, a German work often defy 
prediction from its mere headings. Mainzer, in his Fischfang, 
serves to recall Porson’s lines, which are themselves but an 
adaptation of a Greek epigram,! 
“The Germans in Greek 
Are sadly to seek, 
Not five in five score 
But ninety-five more. 
All save only Hermann, 
And Hermann’s a German!” 
Lest my own conclusion—that neither in the Old or New 
Testament is the implied use of the Rod established—carry 
little weight, I subjoin the conclusions (stated in letters to me) 
arrived at by two well-known Hebrew scholars. 
The first comes from Professor A. R. S. Kennedy (the 
writer of the article on Fishing in the Encyclopedia Biblica) : 
“In short you are entirely justified, so far as evidence goes, 
in saying that the Jews did not use the Rod.” 
The second comes from Dr. St. Clair Tisdall: ‘‘ We find in 
the Bible no proof of fishing with Rod and line: on the contrary 
the fact that no mention whatever, direct or indirect, of the 
fishing Rod occurs either in the Bible or (as far as my reading 
goes) in the Talmud, makes it almost certain that the Rod 
was not used by the Jews. At any rate the use of any such 
instrument is not implied in either Book.”’ 
A second reason for the absence of the Rod may be that 
of dates. The Jews, it might be urged, were not and could 
not be aware of Egyptian Angling, because it sprang up 
subsequent to their Exodus from the country. The reply I 
offer involves, it is true, that bewildering factor, Egyptian 
chronology. But even if a thousand years are as nothing in 
the sight of Manetho and many others, surely one epoch 
correlates with another, and the shifting of one date auto- 
matically involves the shifting of others. 
1 In a letter to A. Dalziel, Sept. 3, 1803, Porson states that these lines 
were an effort made to English an epigram by an Etonian friend, in imitation 
of Phocylides’s saw (Strabo, X. p. 487): 
wal ré5e Bwxvaldov. Aé€psor Karol, odx 6 pév, bs 8 oF, 
ndyres, wAhy Wpoxddous* xa) Mpordéns Aptos. 
