232 THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES^ ESQ.^ LL.D., M.E.A.S., ON 



The root is generally compared, it will be remembered, with 

 the Syriac rashsh, "to hammer." This would be in many 

 ways an acceptable theory, but how Tarshish comes to be the 

 name of a precious stone, translated in the Authorized Version 

 " beryl," but according to the Septuagint and Josephus the 

 chrysolite, requires explanation. That the word occurs as the 

 name of a Persian prince probably yields but little help. 



A noteworthy paper was that of Professor Merx, of 

 Heidelberg, upon " The Influence of the Old Testament upon 

 the Development and Formation of Universal History," which 

 was read at. the first plenary meeting. He said that without 

 the exchange of ideas which had taken place betv/een Orient 

 and Occident, in its broader sense, our civilization would have 

 been quite different from what it is at present. Eeferring to 

 the uncritical way in which Herodotus approached the East, 

 Professor Merx said that, with the genial simplicity of a true 

 artist of story- telling of the first rank, Herodotus presented to 

 us the account of all the known nationalities, minolincr too-ether 

 history and legend, always interesting, and approaching the 

 legends by no means uncritically ; but he only presents what 

 is of importance on account of its relation to Greece. Of a 

 consecutive history of mankind, directed towards a definite 

 end, he knows nothing ; the race which resulted from the 

 stones of Deucalion and Phyrrha have for him no united history. 

 Diodorus Siculus, on the other hand, had the idea of general 

 history as something continuous and fixed, and in his time the 

 task of the historian was conceived as one in which he had to 

 arrange in order the subject of which he treated in such a way 

 as to show the association of races who, however, are divided 

 from each other by time and space. But the historian at this 

 period found himself in a great difficulty, for how was he to 

 gain a uniform series of historical events, with their con- 

 lemporaneous reciprocal influences, when a united chronology 

 was entirely wanting ? Inquiring then how Old Testament 

 history arose, and how it was systemized, Professor Merx said, 

 that if there had ever been a nation which regarded itself as 

 the centre of the world, that nation was the Jews. The various 

 component parts of which Old Testament history is made up 

 cover already, in the ninth century, when the Jehovist found 

 his material, every kind of historical docuQient. In this 

 history lus glance is as it were a universal one, as is proved 

 by the ethnical table, which he incorporated into his work, and 

 which is wrongly ascribed to another source. If we look 

 closer at his work, we see that he has the unity of the human 



