ALLUSIONS IN SACRED BOOKS OP THE EAST. 231 



Aristotle's irpGnov menu, though that had not been supposed to be 

 anything but the sphere of the fixed stars itself. 



After Al Betrugi the belief in the ninth sphere or Primum Mobile 

 seems to have become established. The tenth sphere of Dante is a 

 purely theological idea, but in the system of King Alfonso of 

 Castille the eighth sphere produces the (imaginary) irregularity of 

 the precession of the equinoxes, the ninth the progressive motion of 

 these, and a tenth is introduced as primum mobile. 



Whatever be the age of the " Slavonic Enoch," the passage in 

 question must date from the second half of the Middle Ages. 



Lecturer's Eeply to Written Communications. 



I will take Professor Burkitt's letter paragraph by paragraph. 



(1) A " true traveller's tale "implies a real traveller as well as 

 a real tale. Some man must have experienced Arctic conditions 

 before they could have been correctly described. The Iranians 

 called the man who did this "Yim." It is immaterial whether he 

 called himself by that name or not. 



(2) I thank Professor Burkitt for his correction, and have altered 

 the word "Hebrew " into "Aramaic." 



(3) Here again I have acted in accordance with Professor Burkitt's 

 suggestion, and have deleted the sentence which he has criticized. 



(4) With regard to the nationality of the author of Slav. En., I 

 necessarily accepted, as a preliminary hypothesis, Dr. Charles' view 

 that he was a J ew. I did not come across anything in the book 

 which seemed to me to give serious reason for changing this view, 

 and the references to " chalkhydres " and to animals with crocodile 

 heads, appeared to show a connection with a Greek-speaking people 

 on the Nile. But when I came to the conclusion that Slav. En. was 

 by a late astrologer, I knew that — as the Jews themselves might 

 express it — he was "external" to both the Jewish and the Christian 

 faiths. For an astrologer is necessarily a believer in spiritual 

 influences from the stars and planets directing the destiny of men : 

 in other words, he was practically a pagan, and therefore neither 

 faithful Jew nor faithful Christian. I was not concerned to decide 

 whether he ought to have been " cast out of the synagogue " or 

 "excommunicated from the Church." 



(5) With regard to Eth. En. I am sorry that my argument on 

 p. 214 reads as if I had already made up my mind. I thought I was 



