THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH. 



207 



*' On the Comparison of Asiatic Languages," on account of the 

 materials gathered and systematized, the latter " On the Etruscan 

 Language," as a model of philological investigation. 



If any one will take up the study of the pronouns with their 

 ' variations in Semitic and Indo-European, he will find that the 

 materials are the same but put to different pronominal uses. But 

 the identity can be proved in every department : Mr. Rouse has given 

 valuable examples. 



In this connection I may say that the question of Mr. Coles, 

 regarding the date of the name Jehovah and its use among the 

 Hebrews, leads me to point out that the form of the name shows it 

 to have belonged to the early period when the Hebrews had the 

 active form of n^H hayah, " to be," in use, whatever its meaning 



may then have been. Therefore the name must have been in use 

 before the Hebrew and Aramaic Semites parted. The former took 

 the passive form of the verb to express " to be," though there are a 

 few instances of the old active ; the latter kept the old active 

 form in developing the same meaning. The cause of the difference 

 is one which we see every day. One man says, " I was able 

 to do so and so," another says, "I was enabled to do so and 

 so." This distinction the original Semitic-Indo-European could 

 express by the change of the internal vowel sounds. This is 

 the reason why Semitic languages have their stative verbs in i or e, 

 the old passive form. Then, to take an instance in Indo-European, 

 after all remembrance of their origin had vanished, the genius of 

 the Greeks used these old sounds of their verb " to be " to express 

 their optative mood in its different tenses, attaching them to the end 

 of the verbal stem. This is only an instance. I do not prophesy, but 

 only say what I know will be in a few years, these facts of comparative 

 philology will be taught in all the secondary schools and colleges in 

 the world. 



Dr. Thirtle has done good service in bringing Dr. M. Gaster's 

 important paper to our notice. That one proved fact of the difference 

 in the calendars of Jews and Samaritans, without the slightest 

 attempt of the latter to accommodate themselves to the former, 

 makes as clear as noon that they would have attached as little 

 authority to the Pentateuch itself had it not already been in their 

 possession. 



