326 THE VEN. ARCHDEACON POTTER, M.A., ON THE INFLUENCE 



There is not, therefore, the slightest necessity to "admit the 

 derivation of scriptural stories " from Babylonian myths or traditions. 

 It is an anachronism. 



The comparative study of religious origins, both from the exoteric 

 and esoteric standpoint, can never be complete unless it includes a 

 knowledge of the origin and migration of the religious symbols of 

 antiquity. 



Dr. Thirtle took the chair on Sir Henry Geary's having to leave 

 and said : It has been suggested that the Hebrew scriptures embody 

 Babylonian traditions, and this has been declared to be possible 

 (1) Through Abraham, who came from Ur of the Chaldees ; (2) 

 Through the contact of the Israelites with the aboriginal inhabitants 

 of Canaan, who had previously come under Babylonian influence ; 

 and (3) As a consequence of the J ewish exile in Babylon in the sixth 

 century before Christ. 



Against this suggestion I raise a bar, at once historical and 

 psychological. Knowledge and reason conspire to render such 

 theorising out of the question. (1) True, Abraham was from the 

 Chaldees' country, but he was not only an emigrant in a physical 

 sense, but one who came out morally and spiritually. This fact is on 

 the surface of the story ; at the call of God he became " a stranger in 

 a strange land," in order that he might be the progenitor of a special 

 and peculiar people. 



(2) As to the aboriginal inhabitants of Canaan, it is quite clear 

 from the history that those of them who were allowed to live were 

 not permitted, as heathen, to share the social and religious privileges 

 of the people of Israel. They were not accorded the rights of 

 citizenship, and intermarriage with them was accounted a sin (i Kings 

 ix, 20 ; Ezra ix, 1, 2). 



(3) As to the exile, though it was a time of national bondage and 

 sorrow, yet it was an experience which did not subdue the spiritual 

 consciousness of the nation. With eyes stretching toward their own 

 land, the Jews were in Babylon, but not of Babylon. We have 

 ev^ery reason to conclude that, at that time, even as since then, 

 though receiving all and sundry ideas from the Gentiles, the Jews 

 resolutely set themselves against absorbing the religious ideas of 

 other nations ; that then, as since, they exhibited a spirit of 

 conservative exclusiveness such as no other people has been known 

 to exemplify. It is a trite remark that, while in Babylon, the Jews 



