A B R 



A B R 



before his father's return ; and he told him, that havincj 

 prefsnLed an oblation of flour to the id'jls, the floutell of 

 them, in whofe hand he had placed a hatchet, hcwed the 

 others to pieces with that weapon. Terah replied, that 

 this was bantering, becaufe the idols hr.d not fenfe to S.& in 

 this manner ; upon which Abraham retorted thefe words 

 upon his father againfl the worfliip of fuch gods. But he 

 \\a3 delivered up by Terah to Nimrod, the fovereign of the 

 country, and becaufe he refufed to worfli'n the fire, accord- 

 ing to his oi-der, he was thrown into the niidil of the flames, 

 from wliicli he efcapcd uninjured. Mr. David Levi, in his 

 Lingua Sacra, has given an account of this tradition, ex- 

 tracted from Medra/h Bcrefch'iih ; and it is related by 

 Jerome, (Trad. Hebraic, in Geiiefm,) who feems to admit 

 its general credibility. The vuIgate tranflalion of 2 Efdras 

 ix. 7. exprefles, that he was dehvered from the jire of ike 

 Chcildtians; but the ambiguity of the word Ur, vihich de- 

 notes fii-e, as well as the birth-place of Abraham, feems to 

 have given rife to this opinion. However, if v/e allow that 

 Abraham, being born and educated in an idolatrous country 

 and fam.ily, might have been addifted in very early life to 

 that fuperilition, it is certain that he renounced it, and that 

 he was providentially removed froin a fcene of danger, and 

 that he contributed to propagate juft fentiments concerning 

 the deity wherever he fojourned. The fame of his wifdom, 

 piety, and virtue, fpread far and wide among the nations of 

 the world : this apjiears from the teilimonies of Berofus, 

 HteatKus, Nicholas of Damafcus, cited by Jofephus, (An- 

 fiq. 1. i. c. 7. apud Oper. tom. i. p. 2S. ed. Haverc.) and 

 alfo from what is faid of him by Alexander Polyhillor, Eu- 

 polemus, Artapenus, and others, whofe teftimonies may be 

 feen in Eufebius's Pra;p. Evang. lib. ix. cap. 16, 17, 18, 

 ig. His name is mentioned with honour .all over the 

 Eaft to this day. Jofephus ( Antiq. 1. 'i. c. 8. tom. i. 

 p. ^o. ) infomis us, that he taught the Egyptians arithmetic 

 and aftrology ; and we learn from others, (fee Eufebius and 

 Suidas, ubijhpra,) that he alfo inilrutled the Phccnicians in 

 aftronomy ; that he invented the Hebrew charailers and 

 language ; rnd that he viTote feveral books. Tradition- 

 ary truth and fiSion feem to have been blended in the 

 accounts that are given of this eminent patriarch by the 

 Jews, Arabians, and Indians. Of the books afcribed to 

 liim, the principal feems to have been the trcatife called Jet- 

 zirah, or iki Cnat'ion, of which it gives an account. TTiis 

 is m.entioned in the Talmud, and held in high efl;imation 

 by feveral learned Rabbis. It was printed at Paris in 1552, 

 and trandated into Latin by Pofl;el ; and alfo tranflated into 

 Latin, with remarks, in 1642, by Rittangel, a converted 

 Jew, and profeflbr at Konigiberg. A book, called Abra- 

 ham's Revelation, was difperltd by an ancient feft, under the 

 denomination of Sethians. Abraham's y'////;.77^»'/on is m.en- 

 tioned by Athanalius in his Svnopjis ; and Origen takes 

 notice of a treatife, pretended to be v/ritten by him, in 

 which two angels are introduced difputing about his falva- 

 tion. The Jev.'s alfo reprefent hiir. as the .compofer of 

 fome prayers, and of the 19th Pfalm, and ci a Trcatife 

 againft Idolatry. Fabricius (Bibl. Grsec. tom. ii. p. 516.) 

 inform.s us, that fome aflrclogical books of Abraham, which 

 are now lofl:, are commended by Vettius Valens and Jul. Fir- 

 micus ; and from Kirchem's Treatife of Libraries, p. 142. we 

 learn, that all the feveral words, which Abraham com.pofed in 

 t!;e plains of Mamre, areconta'utd in the library of the monnf- 

 tery of the Holy Crofs on Mount Amaria, in Etliiopia. The 

 Indians bcheve this patriarch to have been the fame with 

 their great prophet Zon-after. According to the Arabians, 

 who have given i.'s a hiftory of Abraham, veiy different 

 from that of the Lib'.e, he was the fon of Azar, and grand- 



fon of Terah ; and the eaftern heathens h<ive a long tradition 

 conceming Abraham's life, which differs very much from that 

 of Mofes. In a book, faid to be in the French h.iug's library. 

 No. 792. which was written by Epiircm the Syrian, and 

 tranflated from the Syriac inlo Arabic, upon Abraham's 

 journey into Egypt, there is a fermon on his death, pri.-.ehed 

 by St. Athanafuis, on the 28th of Marcii ; on which day 

 the Coptic and Egyptian chriftians obfei-ve his fellival. 

 Among the Mahometans, the memory of Abraham is held 

 in great veneration, and his name frequently occurs in the 

 Koran. See Caaea. W- are told by Ebn Shobna, (ad. 

 Ann. Hegira 513, cited by D'llerbelot Bibl. Orient. Art. 

 Alraham, p. 16.) that in the begiiming of the 12th cen- 

 tury, the tomb of Abraham having been difcovered near 

 Hebron, his body, as well as thofe of Ifaac and Jacob, were 

 found entire and uncorrupted. There were likewife fome 

 gold and filver lam.ps hung up in the cave, which was vifitej 

 by multitudes. The Moilems have fuch a reverence for this 

 place, that they make it one of their four pilgrimages, the 

 three others being thofe of Mecca, Medina, and Jerufalem; 

 and the chriftians built a church over the cave, which the 

 Turks aftcrNvards converted into a mofque, and prohibited 

 chriftians from approaching. The emperor Alexander Se 

 verus, (Lamprid. in Sever.) who knew Abraham only by 

 the extraordinary circumftances related by Jews and Chrif- 

 tians, conceived fo high an opinion of him, that he ranked 

 him with Jefus Chriil among his gods. 



Abraham, Rail], in Biography, was prince of the Jewifh 

 nation, and tutor to Abenezra. He foretold that the Mcf- 

 fiah would be born under the fame conhguration or con- 

 jimftion of Jitpiter and Saturn, with Mofes the Jev.ifii law- 

 giver. According to his calculation, this was to happen 

 2859 years after the former, i. e. A. D. 1464; and two fuch 

 conjunctions are faid to have aftually occurred within the 

 ijth centm-y, viz. in 1444 in Cancer, and 20 years after in 

 Pifees; but inftead of deliverance, the Jews experienced only 

 difafter and diftrefs. 



Abraham, R. Ifaac Ben, a Jewifti writer, who hvcd 

 about the beginning of the 1 7th ccntuiy. He was by nation 

 a Folander, but fpent moft of his time in the courts of Ger- 

 many. His book, intilled, Chafnk Emunah, /. c. Muni- 

 men Fidei, was a violent attack on the chriftian religion, in 

 which he examines the whole go fpel, and endeavours to explode 

 all the proofs of it, and to confute the objeftions of Chriilians 

 againft the Jews. This book, which was com.pofed againft 

 the difciples of Luther, was publiflied in 1616, from a MS. 

 which was become very fcarce. It was tranflated into 

 Spanifli, and very widely difperfed. The African Jews held 

 ii in high efliraation, and from them it was brought into 

 peimany by Wagcnfcil, whoinferled a Latin tranflation of 

 it in his Tela Ignea Satans. 



Abraham, Ufque, a Portun:uefe Jew, fuppofed by fome 

 to be a Chriftian, who, with Tobias Athias, ti-anflat'td the 

 Bible out of Hebrew into Spanifli, It was printed at Fer- 

 rara in 15 j3, and reprinted in Holland in 1630. The firil 

 edition of tliis Bible, which is the moft valua'ole, is marked 

 with ftars at certain words, which are defigned to fliew that 

 thefe words are difiicuk to be underftood. in the litbrew, 

 and that they may be ufed in a difterent fenfe. 



Abraham, or Abr/.m, Nicholas, a learned jefuit, •«i-as 

 born in the dioccfe of Toul in Lorrain in 15S9. He was 

 made divinity profelTor in the univerfity of Pont "a Moufi'on, 

 which office he held 17 years, and died Sept. 7, 1655. He 

 wrote notes on Virgil and Nonnus, a Con.mentary on fo;r.e 

 of Cicero's Cratioiis, in 2 vc's. fol. a colkfllcn of theo- 

 logical pieces, intitkd, Plants Vet. Tejl. and fome ot'.ier 

 works. 



Abraham, 



