_entrée_ of the homes of the Turks, rich and poor, where she was
always cordially received and hospitably entertained. Besides this, she
was familiar with the language of her hostesses of the harems which she
visited and was thus able to become far more intimately acquainted with
the people than those who must needs depend on unreliable interpreters.
For these reasons her sprightly pictures of the life of the Turkish
women have always had special value and one can easily understand
her admiration for them and for many of their customs which are so
different from those of her own country--England. She would have fully
endorsed what her distinguished countrywoman, Lady Isabel Burton wrote
many years afterwards: “As a rule I met with nothing but courtesy in
the harems and much hospitality, cordiality and refinement.” _The
Romance of Isabel Lady Burton: The Story of Her Life Told in Part by
Herself and in Part by W. H. Wilkins_, Vol. II, p. 452 (New York,
1897).
[122] _Turkey and the Turks_, p. 84, _et seq._ (by Z. D. Ferriman, New
York, 1911).
“There has been,” writes an American woman who has had exceptional
opportunities for studying the condition of women in Turkey, “a vast
amount of pity wasted upon the Moslem woman. It may surprise even the
woman suffragist to learn that the laws of Mohammed confer upon women
a greater degree of legal protection than any code of laws since the
middle Roman law. The more recent liberties and protection granted to
married women by the laws of divorce and the exclusive property rights
now in the United States alone can be properly compared to those in
force in, Turkey.” _In the Palaces of the Sultan_, pp. 448, 449
(by Anna Bowman Dodd, New York, 1903).
[123] Ibid.
[124] _The Evil of the East, or Truths about Turkey_, p. 42 (London,
1888).
[125] See the _North American Review_.
[126] Lieutenant Wood in his “Journey to the Source of the Oxus,” p.
194 (London, 1872), writes: “Nowhere is the difference between European
and Mohammedan society more strongly marked than in the lower walks
of life. The broad line that separates the rich and poor in civilized
society is as yet but faintly drawn in Central Asia. Here unreserved
intercourse between their superiors has polished the manners of the
lower classes and, instead of this familiarity breeding contempt, it
begets self-respect in the dependent.... Indeed, all the inferior
classes possess an innate self-respect and a natural gravity of
deportment which differs as far from the suppleness of a Hindustani as
from the awkward rusticity of an English clown.” These characteristics
of the people of Central Asia, which so impressed the gallant explorer
of the Oxus, are much more striking in the inhabitants of Anatolia.
Another author writes: “The fine manners of all classes of Mohammedans
in Constantinople were a constant source of admiration to me. It was
as if the grace and dignity of past times--of Courts of the eighteenth
century--had taken refuge in Stamboul. Your Caiquejee, your Cafeje
and the very boot-blacks, if they are Mohammedans, know how to be
unobtrusively polite and well-bred towards each other, and even towards
the Giaour himself, if he treats them civilly. The older fashioned,
the more prejudiced, the Turkish gentleman, the finer are his manners,
the more gracious and delightful his welcome.” _The Sultan and His
Subjects_, Vol. I, pp. 280, 281 (by Richard Davy, New York, 1897).
[127] “The houses of the great Turkish ladies,” declares that keen
observer, Lady Montague, “are kept clean with as much nicety as those
in Holland.” _Letters_, Vol. II, p. 24 (London, 1793).
[128] _Destruction of the Greek Empire_, p. 524 (London, 1903).
[129] _Diary of a Turk_, p. 64 (London, 1903).
Writing to the poet, Pope, Lady Montague declares: “I can assure you
that the Princesses and great ladies pass their time at their looms
embroidering veils and robes, surrounded by their maids, which are
always very numerous, in the same manner as we find Andromache and
Helen described.” _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 110.
[130] _Op. cit._, pp. 54, 55, 98, 99.
[131] _Letters_, Vol. I, p. 104.
[132] The noted traveler and Orientalist, Sir Richard Burton,
graphically defines the meaning of the word Kaif, so frequently heard
in the Near East as “The savoring of animal existence; the passive
enjoyment of mere sense; the pleasant languor, the dreamy tranquillity,
the airy castle-building which in Asia stands in lieu of the vigorous,
intensive, passionate life of Europe. It is the result of a lively,
impressible, excitable nature and exquisite sensibility of nerve--a
facility for voluptuousness unknown to northern regions where happiness
is placed in the exertion of mental and physical powers; where niggard
earth commands ceaseless sweat of brow; and damp, dull air demands
perpetual excitement, exercise or change, or adventure, or dissipation
for want of something better. In the East man requires but rest and
shade; upon the banks of a bubbling stream or under the cool shelter
of a perfumed tree he is perfectly happy smoking a pipe, or sipping a
cup of coffee, or drinking a glass of sherbert, but, above all things,
deranging his body and mind as little as possible; the trouble of
conversations, the displeasures of memory and the vanity of thought
being the most unpleasant interruptions to his _Kaif_. No wonder that
_Kaif_ is a word untranslatable in our mother-tongue.” _Personal
Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah_, pp. 23, 24
(Boston, 1859).
[133] _Ferriman_, _op. cit._, p. 334. Professor W. M. Ramsay, than whom
no one has a more intimate knowledge of the Osmanlis, writes: “Whenever
any work has to be done for which absolute honesty is required, there
is always a Turk employed; they are human watchdogs whom everybody
employs and trusts.” _Impressions of Turkey During Twelve Tears
Wanderings_, p. 43 (London, 1897).
Dr. Schliemann bears the same testimony to their honesty and
trustworthiness in his _Troja_, pp. 10, 11.
[134] _Turquie Agonisante_, p. 49 (Paris, 1913).
[135] _Les Massacres d’Arménie_, pp. 19, 20 (Paris, 1918).
[136] _Ansayrii_, Vol. II, p. 144 (London, 1851). _Cf._ Schliemann’s
_Troja_, p. 338.
[137] _The Odyssey_, XIV, 57, 58.
[138] _Don Quixote_, Part I, Chap. XL.
[139] _Cf._ Pierre Loti in _Turquie Agonisante_, p. 49 (Paris, 1913).
[140] _A History of Greece from its Conquest by the Romans to the
Present Time_, Vol. V, p. 161 (Oxford, 1877). Finlay gives the
following quotation from the _Turco-Græcia_, p. 487, of Crusius
who writes as vigorously in favor of the Osmanlis as Knolles or Pierre
Loti.
“Et mirum est inter barbaros in tanta tantæ urbi colluvie nullas cædes
audiri, vim iniustam non ferri, ius cuivis dici. Ideo Constantinopolin
Sultanus refugium totius orbis scribit: quod omnes miseri ibi tutissime
lateant: quodque omnibus, tam infimis quam summis, tam Christianis quam
infidelibus iustitia administretur.” Could the verdict of history be
more explicit than in the remarkable statements here quoted?
[141] See also his informing brochure, _Les Massacres D’Arménie_
(Paris, 1918).
[142] In Persia, according to the eminent traveler and Orientalist,
Arminius Vambery, “Inferior officials cheat the people, and the latter
again avail themselves of every opportunity to cheat the officials.
Every one in that country lies, cheats and swindles. Nor is such
behavior looked upon as anything immoral or improper; on the contrary,
the man, who is straightforward and honest in his dealings is sure
to be spoken of contemptuously as a fool or madman.” _The Life and
Adventures of Arminius Vambery, written by Himself_, p. 284 (London,
1914).
How the Persians have degenerated since the days of Cyrus and Darius!
Then, according to Herodotus, their sons were carefully instructed from
their fifth to their twentieth year in three things alone--to ride,
to draw the bow, and to speak the truth--“παιδεύονσι δε τους πᾶιδας,
απ πενταετέος αρξάμενοι μέχρι εικοσαέτεος, τρία μουνα, ἱππεύειν καὶ
τοξεύειν καὶ άληθίξεσθαι.” I, 136.
[143] It is interesting to note here that in the Treaty of Amity and
Commerce which was concluded in 1535 between France and the Sublime
Porte one of the articles reads: “It is forbidden to molest the French
in matters of their religion which they have full liberty to practice.”
This guarantee of religious freedom included the Christians of all
other nations--a guarantee with which the Ottoman government has always
faithfully complied. _Cf._ _Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman_, Tom. I, p.
171, 173 (by the Vicomte de la Jonquière, Paris, 1914).
[144] Quoted from _Turkey and the Ottomans_, p. 142, _et. seq._ (by
Lucy M. Garnett, New York, 1911).
[145] _Cf._ _Turkish Memories_, p. 128, _et passim_ (by Sidney
Whitman). See _Through Armenia on Horseback_, Chap. VIII (by G. H.
Hepworth, New York, 1918), and _In the Palaces of the Sultan_, pp. 426,
427 (by Anna Bowman Dodd).
[146] _Op. cit._, p. 108.
[147] Ibid., p. 116.
[148] _Op. cit._, p. 231.
[149] November 29, 1912.
[150] _Le Chemin de Fer de Bagdad_, p. 226 (Paris, 1915).
[151] _Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition carried on by Order of
the British Government during the years 1835, 1836 and 1837_, p. 360
(London, 1868).
[152] Ibid., p. viii.
[153] Lord Palmerston, it is interesting to observe in this connection,
did not hesitate to declare in Parliament that the construction of the
Suez Canal, as planned by De Lesseps, was physically impracticable and
that the project was but a trap set for gullible capitalists.
[154] “Ismaili to Koweit Ry.,” _National Review_, p. 464, May,
1902.
[155] _Nineteenth Century_, p. 1084, June, 1909.
[156] Ibid., p. 1085.
[157] _Nineteenth Century_, p. 966 _et seq._, May, 1914.
[158] June, 1901, p. 629.
[159] June, 1901, p. 629.
[160] _Nineteenth Century_, p. 961, May, 1914.
[161] Chéradame, _op. cit._, p. V.
[162] “Le tres distingué M. Eugène Gallos de la Société de Géographie
de Paris qui, avec M. Le Général Dolot, ont parconru en 1914 la Syrie
et la Mesopotamie peuvent affirmer qu il y avait la-has une seconde
France, aimant inlassablement celle qui est en train d’ écrire sa plus
belle page dans l’histoire des nations.” _Bagdad, Son Chemin de Fer,
Son Importance, Son Avenir_, p. 25 (by Émile Aublé, Paris, 1917).
[163] _The Geographical Journal_, p. 33 _et seq._, July, 1917.
[164] _The Fortnightly Review_, p. 777, May, 1911.
[165] Speaking in the British Parliament April 8, 1903, Lord E.
Fitzmaurice went still further when he declared: “Bound up with the
future of this (Bagdad) Railway there is probably the future political
control of large regions in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and the Persian
Gulf.”
[166] _The Fortnightly Review_, p. 216, February, 1914.
[167] “Les Gouvernment français et anglais refuserent formellment leur
approbation et leur appui et conseillerent a leur nationaux de s’en
abstenir.” E. Aublé, _op. cit._, p. 15.
[168] _The Nineteenth Century_, p. 1090 _et seq._, June, 1909.
It is gratifying to know that this anti-German feeling was not shared
by Sir Clinton and his associates and by clear-visioned men like Sir
Edwin Pears who did not hesitate to declare: “The Germans, in inviting
British coöperation from the first, have acted fairly and loyally.”
_The Contemporary Review_, p. 589, November, 1908.
[169] M. Aublé, _op. cit._, p. 16, referring to this matter, writes:
“Si en elle--même l’enterprise du Chemin de Fer de Bagdad est resté
telle qu’elle s’est presentée au début, une œuvre allemande, c’est
parce qu’on n’a pas voulu profiter des offres allemandes pour lui
donner un caractère international.”
[170] _The Nineteenth Century_, p. 1312, June, 1914.
[171] Ibid., p. 1313. After all negotiations looking towards
internationalization of the Bagdad Railway had failed, M. Geraud, who
is evidently a monarchist, wrote: “We cannot help regretting that
the two powers who held the protectorate of the Orient--France her
old religious protectorate, and England the protectorate of Anatolia
sanctioned by the Cyprus Convention--should, in the space of one
generation, have laid down such beneficent weapons.... In order that
so much destruction could be consummated, all that was responsible in
England and France was the rule of democracy.”
[172] _Cf._ his interesting brochure, _Les Chemins de Fer in Turquie
d’Asie_ (Zurich, 1902).
[173] _Revue de Géographie_, p. 398, May, 1902.
[174] According to Herodotus it was a three months’ journey from
Ephesus to Susa--a somewhat greater distance than from Constantinople
to Bagdad.
[175] _Süddeutsche Monatshefte_, September, 1915. _Cf._ _The Quarterly
Review_, p. 149, January, 1917.
[176] _Der Kampf um die Dardanellen_ (Stuttgart, 1916).
[177] _The Quarterly Review_, p. 528, October, 1917.
[178] For an interesting article on this subject, see “Plato in the
Folk-lore of the Konia Plain,” by F. W. Hasluck, in the _Annual of
the British School of Athens_, No. XVIII.
[179] Called Rum--Rome--because it was, before its conquest by the
Seljuks, a portion of the Roman-Byzantine Empire.
[180] See _Turkey in Europe_, p. 185 (by C. Eliot, London, 1908).
[181] In the Koran, Sura V., it is written, “O believers! surely wine
and games of chance and statues, and divining arrows are an abomination
of Satan’s work! Avoid them that ye may prosper.”
[182] _Cf._ _Mishcat-Ul-Masabih, or a Collection of the Most Authentic
Traditions Regarding the Actions and Sayings of Mohammed_, Vol. II,
pp. 368–370 (trans. from the Original Arabic by Capt. A. N. Mathews,
Calcutta, 1809). “The Angel Gabriel did not visit Mohammed as he
promised to do one night because of the presence of a puppy, saying to
Mohammed ‘we angels do not go into a house in which are pictures or
dogs.’” Vol. II, p. 368.
[183] Sismondi, writing of the Eastern story-tellers, among whom
are women as well as men, informs us they sometimes “excite terror
or pity, but they more frequently picture to their audience those
brilliant and fantastic visions which are the patrimony of the eastern
imagination.... The physicians frequently recommend them to their
patients in order to soothe pain, to calm agitation or to produce
sleep after long watchfulness; and these story-tellers, accustomed to
sickness, modulate their voices, soften their tones and gently suspend
them as sleep steals over the sufferers.” _Historical View of the
Literature of Southern Europe_, Vol. I, p. 62 (Bohn Edition).
[184] The Sheik-ul-Islam issued a vigorous fetwa against it in which
he declared that its use “was contrary to the Koran” and that “smoking
was a hideous and abominable practice of the Giaours, which no true
Believer should adopt.”
[185] “The Eastern nations are generally so addicted to both that
they say ‘a dish of coffee and a pipe of tobacco are a complete
entertainment’; and the Persians have a proverb that coffee without
tobacco is meat without salt.” Sale, _The Koran_, p. 88, “Preliminary
Discourse.”
[186] “Most people who have travelled in the Levant are enthusiastic in
their praises of the Turkish coffee which they drank out there. There
is no reason why coffee prepared in the Turkish style should not become
popular here. There is no difficulty about making it. That the coffee
may have the delicious flavor it has in the Levant, the beans must be
freshly roasted and ground very fine. The water must be boiled in a tin
or copper coffee-pot. To supply, say four or five persons with coffee
in tiny cups, two or three teaspoonfuls of the powder should be put
into the pot while the water is actually boiling therein. Some people
do not like sugar in their coffee, but if sugar is required, it should
be put into the boiling water and allowed to melt before the coffee is
added. Great sweetness is not appreciated by connoisseurs in coffee
drinking. When the ground coffee is added to the boiling water, the pot
should be taken off the fire and the coffee stirred up in the water
with a teaspoon. Then it should be put on the fire again until the
froth rises up. It is then poured into the cups. It is better to pour
out the coffee slowly, placing the pot on the fire at short intervals,
and thus getting more froth for pouring out into the cups, as the
taste of the coffee is supposed to be better with the yellowish froth
on the surface. It is on account of this idea that greedy people in
Turkey choose those cups that have the most froth when coffee is handed
round on a tray, leaving those with less to the others who are waiting
their turn to be served.” Halil Halid’s _Diary of a Turk_, p. 244
(London, 1903).
[187] In marked contrast to this wildly lyrical praise of the fragrant
and delicious beverage made from the Arabian berry, is the denunciation
which was hurled against it by the orthodox followers of Islam who
declared it to be a menace to public morals and one of the four
ministers of the Devil--the other three being wine, opium, and tobacco.
“During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries coffee-drinkers were
persecuted more rigorously in Constantinople than wine-bibbers have
ever been in England or America. Their most unrelenting enemy was the
bloody Murad IV--himself a drunkard--who forbade the use of coffee
under pain of death. He and his nephew, Mehmed IV, after him used to
patrol the city in disguise, à la Harun-al-Rashid, in order to detect
and punish for themselves any violation of the law.... A personage
no more straitlaced than Charles II caused a court to hand down the
following decision: ‘The Retayling of Coffe may be an innocente Trayde;
but as it is used to nourisshe Sedition, spredde Lyes, and scandalyse
Greate Mene, it may also be a common Nuissaunce.’” _Constantinople
Old and New_, p. 24 (by H. G. Dwight, New York, 1915).
[188] _The Beauties of the Bosphorus_, p. 127 (London, 1839).
[189] _Cf._ his _Origin of Cultivated Plants_, p. 439 _et seq._ (New
York; _Géographie Botanique Raisonnée_ (Paris, 1885).
[190] _Historical Sketches_, Vol. I, p. 116, 117 (by Cardinal Newman,
London, 1901).
[191] _Cf._ _Discovery in Greek Lands_, p. 57 _et seq._ (by F. H.
Marshall, Cambridge, 1920). See also _A Century of Archæological
Discoveries_, p. 166 ff. (by A. Michaelis, New York, 1908).
Nothing impressed us more during our journey through Anatolia than the
utter destruction of those superb cities of which a Roman author once
wrote,
_Magnificas Asiæ perreximus urbes._
Of many of these even the sites were unknown until they were recently
discovered by the archæologists of Europe. The site of the famous
temple of Diana at Ephesus was not identified until 1869, although this
celebrated structure was once classed as one of the seven wonders of
the world. Nowhere in Asia Minor does one find anything to compare with
the stately temples of Pæstum, Girgenti, and Segesta which, with the
exception of the wonderful monuments in Athens, are the most remarkable
and best preserved groups of ancient Greek architecture in existence.
[192] The region through which they marched was described in the
graphic language of an old chronicler as _Terram horroris et
salsuginis, terram siccam, sterilem, inamœnam_.
[193] _The History of the Crusades_, Vol. 1. p. 126 (New York, n. d.).
[194] Ibid., p. 257.
[195] Ibid., p. 258.
[196] Called by Cicero _Tauri-Pylæ_.
[197] As legend has it, Charlemagne sleeps in Odenberg, in Hesse,
where crowned and armed and girt with his trusty sword, _La Joyeuse_,
he awaits the advent of Anti-Christ when he will awake and deliver
Christendom.
Bonaparte, it is supposed in certain parts of France, will again return
to restore the country to its pristine glory. When Louis Napoleon
submitted the plebiscite to the countrymen, many gave their vote under
the impression that it was in support of his famous uncle.
[198] _Lares et Penates_ or _Cilicia and Its Governors_, p. 79 (by W.
B. Barker, London, 1853).
[199] Barker, _op. cit._, p. 82.
[200] The legend about people sleeping preternatural lengths of time
has an honored place in the folklore of many nations in both the East
and the West. We have already noted the traditions concerning the long
sleeps of Barbarossa, Charlemagne, Napoleon, and other distinguished
characters. But many other instances might be enumerated showing the
prevalence of similar tales in many lands from the sleepers of Sardis,
mentioned by Aristotle, to Rip Van Winkle, immortalized by Washington
Irving.
[201] _Cf._ Strabo, XIV, 5; and Arrian’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, II,
5. For an account of Asurbanipal, in the light of recent Assyrian
discoveries, see _Graven in the Rock_, Chap. XIV (by S. Kinns, London,
1891).
[202]
_Talk of our souls and realms beyond the grave,_
_The very boys will laugh and say you rave._
[203] _History of Greece_, Vol. X, p. 311 (by W. Mitford, London, 1810).
[204] The Greek word for pinion is _tarsos_.
[205] _Cf._ Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, I. 6; VIII. 7. 2. The
Jewish historian was probably misled by the similarity of sounds of
the two words and ventured to solve what has always been a riddle to
historians and Scripture commentators.
[206] “Oppidum autem Britanni vocant,” says Cæsar, referring to the
capital of Cassivellaunus, now London, “cum sylvas impeditas vallo
atque fossa munierunt, quo incursiones hostium vitandæ causa convenire
consuerunt.” _De Bello Gallico_, Lib. V, Cap. 21.
[207] Strabo, _Geography_, XIV, 51.
[208] J. B. Lightfoot in _Philippians_, Appendix on St. Paul and
Seneca, p. 271.
[209] _The Cities of St. Paul, Their Influence on His Life and
Thought_, pp. 88, 89 (London, 1907).
[210] _The Heathen World and St. Paul_, p. 20 (by E. H. Plumptre,
London, n.d.).
[211] _Acts of the Apostles_, xvii; 6.
[212] In one of his beautiful homilies on the _Epistle of St. Paul to
the Romans_, St. John Chrysostom, the greatest of pulpit orators,
declares: “I honor Rome for this reason; for, though I could celebrate
her praises on many other accounts;--for her greatness, for her beauty,
for her power, for her wealth, for her warlike exploits, yet, passing
over all these things, I glorify her for this reason, that St. Paul
in his lifetime wrote to the Romans, and loved them, and was present
among them and conversed with them, and ended his life among them.
Wherefore the city is on this account renowned more than all others;
on this account I admire her, not on account of her gold, her columns
or her other splendid decorations.” _Oeuvres Complètes de Saint Jean
Chrysostome_, Tom XVI, p. 308 (Paris, 1871).
[213] _Across Asia Minor on Foot_, pp. 35, 351 (by W. J. Childs, New
York, 1917).
[214] The massacre in Constantinople which so horrified the civilized
world was, like that in Adana, provoked by the revolutionary activities
of the Armenians. After having boldly announced their intention of
applying the torch to the city and “reducing it,” as their posted
placards phrased it, “to a desert of ashes,” a party of audacious young
conspirators proceeded to blow up the Ottoman Imperial Bank, while
others of their associates made the Psammatia quarter flow in the blood
of helpless inhabitants. During eighteen hours of terror the carnage
which the Armenians caused by their use of dynamite and by throwing
bombs from the windows upon the Turkish soldiers, who were detailed
to suppress the outbreak, rivaled anything recorded in the worst days
of the Paris Commune of 1871. _Cf._ _Turquie Agonisante_, p. 174 (by
Pierre Loti).
Without pretending to absolve the exasperated Turks for their part in
this appalling massacre, I may ask “what would the people of New York
do if a foreign mob from the East Side with the red flag at their head
were to attempt to blow up the Subtreasury Building and to make the
same use of high explosives in their wanton destruction of life and
property as did the Armenians in their ghastly work in Constantinople?”
The answer will be sufficient attenuation for the conduct of the
infuriated Turks on this frightful occasion. And yet, according to the
reports flashed through the world at the time, this massacre, like that
at Adana and at numberless other places, was laid to the charge of
the “unspeakable Turk.” It was the old, old story; the Turk is always
guilty, the Armenian never.
[215] _A Wandering Scholar in the Levant_, pp. 147–150 (London, 1896).
[216] Pierre Loti tells of a French consul in Asia Minor who barely
escaped assassination at the hands of an Armenian agitator who, when
questioned regarding his attempt on the life of the functionary, coolly
replied: “I did this in order that the Turks might be accused of it and
in the hope that the French would rise up against them after the murder
of their consul.” _Les Massacres d’Arménie_, p. 50 (Paris, 1918).
[217] _The Diary of a Turk_, p. 130.
[218] D. G. Hogarth, _op. cit._, p. 77.
[219] Ibid., 65.
[220] Halil Halid’s _Diary of a Turk_, p. 129 (London, 1903). “Alors,”
declares Pierre Loti, “comme des lions exaspérés ils se dechaînent
contre ceux que, depuis des siècles, on leur a denoncés comme les
plus dangereux responsables de tous les malheurs de la patrie....
Hélas! oui, les Turcs ont massacré! Je pretends toutefois que le
recit de leur tueries a toujours été follement exagéré et les details
enlaidis à plaisir; je pretends aussi--et personne là-bas n’osera me
contredire--que la beaucoup plus lourde part des crimes commis revient
aux Kurdes dont je n’ai jamais pris la defense.” _Op. cit._, p. 22–24.
[221] Commenting on this subject Professor, now Sir William Ramsay,
writes, “Lord Salisbury protests in the strongest terms that Britain
has never entertained any schemes of acquisition in Asia Minor. There
is, however, probably no Russian or German or Frenchman who believes
him.... The protestations that Britain entertains no designs in Asia
Minor merely make people abroad all the more sure that a British
statesman’s word can never be trusted.” And, referring to her creation
of a new consular department to aid her in compassing her designs, he
observes “as a piece of statesmanship, crafty and unscrupulous, but
able, it was a master-stroke; though I think no one among us will ever
look back to it without blushing for the jockeying by which it was
effected.” _Impressions of Turkey During Twelve Years Wanderings_,
pp. 142–144 (London, 1897).
In the light of recent events how significant--almost prophetic--are
these words of Sir William on British policy and diplomacy regarding
Turkey!
[222]
_Where men once dwelt, a dreary lake is seen,_
_And coots and bitterns haunt the waters green._
_Metamorphoses_, VIII, 24, 25.
[223] Count Marcellinus, one of the first ministers of Justinian,
vividly describes, in a single sentence, the frightful depredations
of Attila when this dreadful “Scourge of God” _Pene totam Europam,
invasis excisique civitatibus atque castellis, conrasit_. This
sentence perfectly describes the depredations of Timur and Jenghiz
Khan during their terror-inspiring careers in Western Asia. Of Jenghiz
Khan the Arabian traveler, Ibn Batuta, writes that he “came into the
countries of Islamism and destroyed them.” The same authority says
that after destroying such great cities as Bokhara and Samarcand
“he killed the inhabitants, taking prisoners the youth only and
leaving the country quite desolate. He then passed over the Gihon
and took possession of all Khorasan and Irak, destroying the cities
and slaughtering the inhabitants.” His son, Hulaku, laid Bagdad in
ruins, whence he proceeded with his followers to Syria, continuing his
depredations “until divine Providence put an end to his career.” _The
Travels of Ibn Batuta_, pp. 87, 88, 89 (trans. by S. Lee, London,
1829).
The English historian, Marshman, writing of the elder Mongol conqueror,
declares: “From the Caspian to the Indus, more than one thousand miles
in extent, the whole country was laid waste with fire and sword by the
ruthless barbarians who followed Jenghiz Khan. It was the greatest
calamity which had befallen the human race since the Deluge and five
centuries have been barely sufficient to repair that desolation.”
_History of India from Remote Antiquity to the Accession of the Mogul
Dynasty_, Vol. I, p. 49 (London, 1842).
“Well might the Mussulman and Christian world shrink down upon its
knees in the presence of such a terrible visitation. ‘We pray God,’
writes Ibin al Athir, ‘that He will send to Islam and to the Mussulmans
someone who can protect them, for they are the victims of the most
terrible calamity, the men killed, their goods pillaged, their children
carried off, their wives reduced to slavery or put to death, the
country in fact, laid waste.’ Juveni says that in the country traversed
by the Mongols, only a thousandth part of the population remained
and where there were previously one hundred thousand inhabitants
there remained but a hundred. ‘If nothing interferes with the growth
of the population in Khorasan and Irak Ajem from now to the day of
resurrection,’ he adds, ‘it will not be the tenths of what it was
before the conquest.’” _History of the Mongols_, Part III, p. i
(by H. Howorth, London, 1888).
Jenghiz Khan and “his followers tramped over the fairest portions of
the earth with the faggot and the sword in their hands, forestalling
the day of doom and crumbling into ruin many old civilizations. His
creed was to sweep away all cities as the haunts of slaves and of
luxury, that his herds might freely feed upon grass whose green was
free from dusty feet. It does make one hide one’s face in terror to
read that from 1211 to 1223 eighteen million four hundred and seventy
thousand human beings perished in China and Tangut alone at the hands
of Jenghiz and his followers; a fearful hecatomb which haunts the
memory until one forgets the other features of the story.” Howorth,
_op. cit._, Part I, p. 113.
[224] Pliny in his _Historia Naturalis_, II, 86, writes: _Maximus terræ
memoria mortalium extitit motus, Tiberii Cæsaria principatu_; XII
_urbibus Asiæ una nocte prostatis_.
[225] _History of Greece From Its Conquests by the Romans to the
Present Time, B.C. 146 to A.D. 1864_, Vol. I, p. 224 (by George
Finlay, Oxford, 1877).
[226] I do not ignore the atrocities which the Turks, especially
during the last few decades, are alleged to have committed in Armenia
and elsewhere. But until reliable testimony as to the Ottoman side of
the question is forthcoming it is only fair to the accused for one to
suspend judgment.
[227] _Mahomet et le Coran_, p. vii (Paris, 1865).
[228] “Neque in hoc me falli opinor cum hodieque non paucos ex
nostris, alioquin non indoctos, Mahumeticarum rerum tam rudes videam,
ut Mahumetanos Idolatras, Lunæque ac Mahumeti adoratores existiment,
aliasque de Agarenica secta ejusque Auctore neptias effutiant.”
_Alcorani Textus Universus_, Tom. I, p. 6 (Patavii, 1698).
Padre Lodovico Marracci, who was a religious of the order of the Clerks
Regular of the Mother of God, was the confessor of Pope Innocent XII.
It was in obedience to the command of this Pontiff that he published
his great work on the Koran on which he spent forty of the best years
in his life. It embraces three folio volumes with the text of the Koran
in Arabic, accompanied by a Latin translation and copious notes, and is
notable as being the most successful of the earlier attempts to make
the Koran and Mohammedanism known to the Christian world.
[229] _Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed_, Vol. II, p. 181 (Berlin,
1862).
[230]
_A mil Franceis fait bien oerchier la vile,_
_Les sinagoges et les mahumeries:_
_A mailz de fer, à ouignèes qu ’il tindrent,_
_Fruissent Mahum e trestutes les ydles._
Lai CCXCVI.
[231]
_A. I. josdi s’ala d’ un fort vin enivrer;_
_De la taverne issi; quant il s’en volt aler,_
_En une place vit. I. fumier reverser;_
_Mahomes si colcha, ne s’en volt trestorner:_
_Là l’estranglèrent porc, si com j’oï conter;_
_Por ce ne volt juis de char de porc goster._
Vv. 5547 _et seq._ (Paris, 1860).
[232] Porcorum verum esum, justa prorsus ratione, contemnunt qui
morsibus eorum dominum consumserunt. _Recueil des Historiens des
Croisades_, Tom. IV, p. 130 (Paris, 1879).
[233] “As a sample of the controversial works of the theologians of the
Reformed Church on this subject,” Mr. R. B. Smith in his interesting
work on _Mohammed and Mohammedanism_, p. 79 (London, 1876), calls
attention to “the following modest title-page of a ponderous work
written in 1666: Anti-Christus Mahometes: ubi non solum per Sanctam
Scripturam, ac Reformatorum testimonia, verum etiam per omnes alios
probandi modos et genera, plene, fuse, imvicte solideque demonstratur
Mahometem esse unum illum verum, magnum de quo in Sacris fit mentio,
Antichristum.”
[234] _Mohammedanism_, p. 12 (New York, 1916).
[235] _Historia Orientalis_, _Dedicatio_, p. 5 (by J. H. Hottinger,
Zurich, 1660).
[236] “Quod vero dissimulandum non est, licet quidam docte, satis
solideque scripserint, nonnulli ex rerum Sarracenicarum ignorantia,
vera plerumque omittentes, ficta ac fabulosa in medium protulerunt,
quæ Mahumetanis risus excitarent eosque in errore suo obstinatiores
efficerent.” _Alcorani Textus Universus_, Tom. I, p. 1 (Patavii, 1698).
[237] Referring to the widespread errors concerning Mohammed and his
teachings the eminent Orientalist, Adrian Reland, wrote more than two
centuries ago: “Quotidie magis magisque experior mundum decipi velle et
præconceptis opinionibus regi”--I daily become more and more convinced
that the world wishes to be deceived and is governed by preconceived
opinions. _De Religione Mohammedica_, p. xxii (Utrecht, 1705). Is
there not still room for improvement in this respect?
[238] “Mohammed litt an einer Krankheit, welche in jener ausgepragten
Form, wie bei ihm, in unseren Gegenden bisweilen bei Frauen, aber
selten bei Mannern vorkommt, Mann hat ihr verschiedene Namen gegeben;
Schönlein heisst sie _hysteria muscularis_.” _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 207.
[239] “Nulla porro falsa doctrina eat quæ non aliqua vera
intermisceat.” _Quæst_, Evang. II. 40.
[240] _Handbuch der allgemeinen Kirchengeschicte_, Vol. I, p. 748
(Freiburg im Breisgau, 1884).
“It can be readily understood how the sight of the Muslim trader at
prayer, his frequent prostrations, his absorbed and silent worship
of the Unseen, would impress the heathen African, endowed with that
strong sense of the mysterious such as generally accompanies a low
stage of civilization. Curiosity would naturally prompt inquiry and the
knowledge of Islam thus imparted might sometimes win over a convert who
might have turned aside had it been offered unsought, as a free gift.”
_The Preaching of Islam_, p. 418 (by T. W. Arnold, London, 1913).
This view was emphasized by good old Father Marracci more than two
centuries ago when he wrote: “Si ethnicus humani intellectus captum
excedentia, vel naturali conditioni et imbecilitati dificillima, si non
impossibilia, ... cum Alcoranica doctrina comparaverit, statim ab his
refugiet et ad illa obviis ulnis accurret.” _Op. cit._, Tom. II,
p. 9.
[241] _Cf._ J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, _op. cit._, p. x.
[242] _De Heresibus Liber, Patrologia Græca_, Vol. XVIV, Col. 763 _et
seq._ (Migne Edition).
[243] “Summa vero hujus hæresis intentio est ut Christus Dominus ut
neque Deus neque Dei Filius esse credatur; sed licet magnus Deoque
dilectus homo tamen purus et vir quidem sapiens et propheta maximus.
Quæ quidem olim diaboli machinatione concepta primo per Arium seminata
deinde per istum Satanam, scilicet Machumet, provecta, per Antichristum
vero ex toto secundum diabolicam intentionem complebitur.” _Petri
Venerabilis Opera Omnia_, col. 655, _Patrologia Latina_, Vol.
Tom. CLXXXIX (Migne Edition).
[244] “Seminator di scandalo e di scisma.” Inferno, XXVIII, 35.
[245] C. Snouck Hurgronje, _Mohammedanism_, p. 129, _et seq._ (New
York, 1916).
[246] The duty of the imam “is to stand in front of the congregation,
facing the Kibleh or Mecca-pointing niche, at the appointed hours
of devotion, that is ordinarily, as every one knows, five times a
day, when he recites aloud the public prayers, marks time for the
various devotional postures, and, in a word, acts as fugleman to the
worshipers ranged behind him, from whom, however, he is distinguished
by no special dress, caste or character! _Primus inter pares_;
but nothing more. The Khatib, or preacher, usually reads out of an
old, well-thumbed manuscript sermon book, or, though much more rarely,
delivers _extempore_ the Friday discourse, a short performance,
seldom exceeding ten minutes in duration.... Once outside the mosque,
the imam, the khatib, or whoever else may have officiated during the
prayers, is a house-mason, a green-grocer, or pipe-maker, or anything
else, as before.” _Essays on Eastern Questions_, p. 91, _et
seq._ (by W. G. Palgrave, London, 1872).
[247] _Op. cit._, p. 82.
[248] The word “mosque” is derived from the Arabic _masjid_ which
signifies a place of worship.
[249] For a full description of Beith Allah--house of God--and the holy
Kaaba, “Navel of the World,” as the Arabian geographer, Ibn Haukal,
calls it, see Sir Richard Burton’s _A Pilgrimage to El Medina and
Mecca_, Chaps. XXIV, XXV.
[250] _Cf._ _Aspects of Islam_, p. 199 _et seq._ (by D. B. MacDonald,
New York, 1911).
[251] _Bibliothèque Orientale_, Tom. II, p. 81 (by Barthèlemy
d’Herbelot, The Hague, 1777).
[252] D’Herbelot, _op. cit._, Tom. II, p. 106.
[253] D’Herbelot, _op. cit._, Tom. II, p. 351.
[254] _Op. cit._, p. 122, _et seq._
[255] _Mohammed and Islam_, p. 45 (by Ignaz Goldziher, trans, by K. C.
Seelye, New Haven, 1917).
[256] _Mohammed and Mohammedanism_, p. 334. _et seq._ (by R.
B. Smith. London, 1876).
[257] _Studies in a Mosque_, p. 169 (London, 1893).
[258] “The spiritual energy of Islam is not, as has been so often
maintained, commensurate with its political power. On the contrary, the
loss of political power and worldly prosperity has served to bring to
the front the finer spiritual qualities which are the truest incentives
to missionary work. Islam has learned the uses of adversity and so far
from a decline in worldly prosperity being a presage of the decay of
this faith, it is significant that those very Muslim countries that
have been longest under Christian rule show themselves most active in
the work of proselyting. The Indian and Malay Mohammedans display a
zeal and enthusiasm for the spread of the faith, which one looks for in
vain in Turkey and Morocco.” T. W. Arnold, _op. cit._, p. 426, 427.
[259] According to Dr. Hubert Jansen’s painstaking _Verbreitung des
Islams_, the number of Mohammedans in the world in 1897 was 259,680,672.
[260] “Si les Mussulmans et les Chrétiens me prâtaient l’oreille,
je ferais cesser leur divergence, et ils diviendraient frères à
l’extérieur et à l’intérieur.” _Rappel à l’Intelligent, Avis à
Indifferent_, p. 105 (Paris, 1858).
[261] An American writer, referring to the Italian campaign in Tripoli,
asks: “Is there rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash away the stain
on Italy’s fair name made deep and black by ruthless massacre?” G. F.
Herrick in _Christian and Mohammedan_, p. 236 (New York, 1912).
And an English author writing of the British war on the Gold Coast
declares: “Our ‘prestige’ serves as an excuse for committing what we
should condemn as crimes in any other nation. It is an entity that has
juggled us into the belief that to destroy what we cannot retain is the
prerogative not of barbarism, but of civilization and Christianity....
Truly this war will be a _damnosa hereditas_ to posterity, alike
whether we accept or disclaim the fearful responsibilities in which it
has involved us.” R. B. Smith, _op. cit._, p. 258.
[262] “Aggredior vos non, ut nostri sæpe faciunt, armis sed verbis;
non vi, sed ratione; non odio, sed amore.” Peter the Venerable, _op.
cit._, col. 673. “I attack you, not as our people often do with
arms, but with words; not by force but by reason; not in hate but in
love.” These are the words with which Peter the Venerable opens his
first book against Mussulmans and shows what should be the attitude of
the missionary that would have a hearing with a people who are as proud
and sensitive as are the followers of Mohammed.
[263] For a helpful map, indicating the course of the Royal Road, the
reader is referred to the third volume of Rawlinson’s _Five Great
Monarchies_ (New York, 1881). Much light is also thrown on this
interesting subject by Rennell’s valuable work, _The Geographical
System of Herodotus_, Vol. I, Sec. 13 (London, 1830).
It is well, in reference to this subject, to recollect that the
ordinary policy of the Asiatic monarchies was not that of holding
immense continuous areas of territory, but the comparatively simpler
one of safeguarding the great highways of communication. “It is
important to remember this in connection with rapid conquest like
that of Alexander. To conquer the Achæmenian empire did not mean the
effective occupation of all the area within its extreme frontiers--that
would have been a task exceeding one man’s lifetime--but the conquest
of its cultivated districts and the holding of the roads which
connected them.” _Cf._ _The House of Seleucus_, Vol. I, p. 22
(by E. R. Bevan, London, 1902).
[264] _Mishkab_ V, 6. Hughes’ _Dictionary of Islam_, p. 635
(London, 1885).
[265] _Mohammedanism_, p. 85 (New York, 1916).
[266] _Missionary Review_, 1889, p. 302.
[267] _Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah_, p.
299 (by Richard F. Burton, Boston, 1858).
[268] “But for the earthquakes which have here and there rent the walls
and caused the roofs to fall in nothing would be missing except the
woodwork carried off by the builders of more recent cities. The removal
of the basalts and other hard materials drawn from the quarries of the
district would have been too troublesome and expensive.” _The Earth
and Its Inhabitants_, Vol. IV, p. 285 (New York, 1885).
[269] “Nel far le mercanzie, non si contano, ma si pesano casse intere
di denari; e non si fa mai compra o vendita dove non corran quaranta,
cinquanta, ottanta o centomila que piu a minuto non si parla e sarebbe
vergogna.” _Viaggi di Pietro della Valle_, Vol. I, p. 331
(Brighton, 1843).
When one remembers the purchasing power of money in the time of the
illustrious patrician compared with what it is now, the sums mentioned
were indeed considerable.
[270] _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 353.
[271] _The Voyage of John Huyghen Van Linschoten to the East Indies_,
Vol. I, p. 48 (pub. by the Hakluyt Society, London, 1885). “Merchants
come thither”--Ormuz--“from India with ships loaded with spicery
and precious stones, pearls, cloths of silk and gold, elephants’
teeth and many other wares, which they sell to the merchants of
Hormos”--Ormuz--“and which these in turn carry all over the world to
dispose of again. In fact ’tis a city of immense trade.” _The Book of
Ser Marco Polo the Venetian Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the
East_, Vol. I, p. 107 (trans. by H. Yule, London, 1903).
[272] _Hakluyt’s Voyages_, Vol. V, p. 446 (Glasgow, 1904).
[273] “Mettendo attorno al campo della carovana ... molte sentinelle
che tutta la notte scorrevano intorno e gridavano, (secondo la lors
usanza) agli amici que stessero all ’erta ed ai nemici che non si
accostassero.” _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 353.
[274] _See_ Vol. I, p. 7.
[275] “Vivendi licentia, inquies, illos allicit. Ita puto: sed
aliquid aliud est quod illos sub boni verique specie decipiat.
Habet nimirum hæc superstitio quidquid plausibile ac probabile in
Christiana Religione reperitur et quæ naturæ legi ac lumini consèntanea
videntur. Mysteria illa fidei nostræ quæ primo aspectu inchedibilia
et impossibiblia apparent, et præcipue quæ nimis ardua humanæ naturæ
consentur, penitus excludit.” _Op. cit._ Tom. I, p. 4.
[276] _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, s. v. “Mahometanisme.”
[277] _Mankind and the Church_, p. 289 (by G. A. Lefroy, London, 1907).
[278] “A certain solidarity characterizes not only family relations
but all Moslem society. There are no paupers; almsgiving is not a
mere theoretical obligation but an essential religious duty really
discharged. It may be replied that there are many beggars. There are
and the spectacle is very unpleasant; but from the beggars’ point of
view, could they, given their misfortunes, have a better life? If
one has twisted limbs or any incurable malady, including laziness,
is it not more healthy, interesting and lucrative to sit begging at
street-corners than to be the inmate of a charitable institution?
One thing is certain--Moslem beggars never starve.” _Turkey in
Europe_, p. 176 (by Sir Charles Eliot, London, 1908).
[279] Lieutenant Wood, the gallant explorer of the Oxus, referring to
this subject, writes: “Often ... have I observed that the Mohammedans,
both old and young, however worn out by fatigue or suffering from
hunger and thirst, have postponed all thought of self-indulgence to
their duty to their God.
It is not with them the mere force of habit; it is the strong
impression on their minds that the duty of prayer is so important that
no circumstance can excuse its omission.” _Journey to the Source of
the Oxus_, p. 93 (London, 1872).
[280] These good reports about Mohammedans are not of recent date. Read
what Ricoldus de Monte Crucis, a Dominican missionary among them in the
thirteenth century, has to say of them: “Quis enim non obstupescat si
diligenter consideret quanta ... devotio in oratione, misericordia ad
pauperes, reverencia ad nomen Dei et prophetas et loca sancta, gravitas
in moribus, affabilitas ad extraneos, concordia et amor ad suos.”
_Peregrinatores Medii Ævi Quatuor_, p. 131 (by J. C. M. Laurent,
Leipsic, 1864).
[281] Regarding the Armenian’s capacity for business, Mr. Curzon has
wittily remarked, that, while “it takes four Turks to cheat one Frank,
two Franks to cheat one Greek and two Greeks to cheat one Jew, it takes
six Jews to cheat one Armenian.” _Researches in the Highlands of
Turkey_, Vol. I, p. 8 (by H. F. Tozer, London, 1869).
According to Dr. Schliemann, however, the palm for business ability
must be awarded to the Greeks from the island of Lesbos. “The Lesbian
Greeks,” he tells us, “have the reputation of being the shrewdest
merchants in the world; as a proof it is alleged that in cities the
commerce of which is in the hands of Lesbians not a Jew is to be
found.” _Troja_, p. 324.
[282] The learned Benedictine, Father Parisot, has recently collected
the vocabulary of this interesting dialect which is threatened with
early extinction.
[283] This peculiarity is explained by the fact that when the Jews and
Moors were expelled from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century tens
of thousands of Jews migrated to Salonica and Constantinople where
Spanish is still spoken by large numbers of their descendants.
[284] A like superstition attaches to nearly all similar remains of
antiquity not only in Syria but in Egypt as well. Some are reputed to
have special virtues for those suffering from tic-douloureux or from
rheumatism for which affections they are said by Orientals to possess
even greater curative properties than their famous panacea--the bezoar
stone.
[285] Ibn Butlan, a noted Arabian physician, and a Christian, of
Bagdad, who visited Aleppo in the middle of the eleventh century thus
refers to this curious tradition: “In the lower part of the castle
is a cave where he”--Abraham--“concealed his flocks. When he milked
these, the people used to come for their milk crying ‘_Halaba ya
la_’?--Milked yet or not?--asking thus one of the other, and hence
the city came to be called Halab--Milked.” _Cf._ G. le Strange’s
_Palestine Under the Moslems_, p. 363 (London, 1890).
[286] _The Hittites_, p. 12 (London, 1903).
[287] Genesis xxiii.
[288] Ezekiel xvi: 3.
[289] Kings ii: 12.
[290] St. Jerome in the beginning of his commentary on the gospel of
St. Matthew, pertinently observes in this connection: “Notandum est ...
nullam sanctarum assumi mulierum sed eas quas Scriptura reprehendit: ut
que propter peccatores venerat, de peccatoribus nascens, omnium peccata
deleret. Unde et in consequentibus Ruth Moabitis ponitur et Bethsabee
uxor Uriæ.”
[291] _Travels in Syria and the Holy Land_, p. 147 (London, 1822).
[292] _Cf._ _The Language of the Hittites_ in _The Times Literary
Supplement_, p. 180 (London, April 3, 1919).
[293] When the speech of the Hittites ceased to be a living tongue
cannot even be surmised. St. Paul heard it in Lystra of Lycaonia,
but how much later it may have continued to be spoken in certain
other parts of Asia Minor cannot now be determined. As a people they
doubtless long survived and, although they were gradually absorbed
by neighboring races, “it is believed that some of them still exist,
with their early distinctive characteristics, among the hills of the
anti-Taurus range.”
We are likewise in ignorance as to when the languages of Egypt and
Babylonia gave place to those of their conquerors. According to Sayce
“the Egyptian hieroglyphics were still written and read in the time of
Decius, the cuneiform characters of Babylon were employed in the age
of Domitian.” _The Ancient Empires of the East_, p. ix (New York,
1886).
[294] According to recent investigations this was probably what is now
known as the Wady el ’Arish and not the Nile, as usually supposed.
[295] Genesis xii: 5.
[296] Sayce’s _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as
Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, p. 410
(London, 1898). Lucius Ampelius writing in his _Liber Memorialis_,
Cap. II, of the origin of the constellations, refers to a more
extraordinary legend in connection with the Euphrates. “_Pisces
ideo pisces quia bello Gigantum Venus perturbata in piscem se
transfiguravit. Nam dicitur et in Euphrate fluvio ovum piscis in ora
flumimis columba adsedisse dies plurimos et exclusisse deam benignam
et misericordem hominibus ad bonam vitam. Utrique memoriæ causa pisces
inter sidera locati._”
[297] For an interesting report on the excavations made at Djerabis on
behalf of the British Museum, see the beautifully illustrated monograph
_Carchemish_ (by D. G. Hogarth, London, 1915).
[298] It is to this legend that is due the Mussulman name--Nimroud
Dagh--the Mountain of Nimrod--of the elevation on which stands the
citadel of Urfa.
[299] In the “Testament of St. Ephrem,” as given by Assemani, occurs
the words “Benedicta civitas, ... Edessa sapientum mater, quæ ex vivo
Filii ore benedictionem per ejus discipulum accepit. Illa igitur
benedictio in ea maneat donec Sanctus apparuerit.” _Bibliotheca
Orientalis_, Tom. I, p. 141 (Rome, 1719).
[300] _Cf._ _Histoire Politique, Religieuse et Littéraire d’ Edesse
jusque à la Première Croisade_, p. 81 (by R. Duval, Paris, 1892).
[301] _Ecclesiastical History_, Bk. I, Chap. XIII.
[302] An ancient manuscript in the British Museum contains a service
book of Saxon times, in which the letter of Our Lord to Abgar follows
the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed. At the end of the letter,
which is in the Latin version of Rufinus, occurs the words: “Sive in
domu tua, sive in civitate tua, sive in omni loco nemo inimicorum
tuorum dominabit. Et insidias diaboli ne timeas et carmina inimicorum
tuorum destruuntur (sic), et omnes inimici tui expellentur a te: sive
a grandine, sive a tonitrua (sic) non noceberis, et ab omni periculo
liberaberis: sive in mare, sive in terra, sive in die, sive in nocte,
sive in locis obscuris. Si quis hanc epistolam secum habuerit, securus
ambulet in pace.” _Cf._ _Ancient Syriac Documents Relative
to the Earliest Establishment of Christianity in Edessa and the
Neighboring Countries, from the Year after Our Lord’s Ascension to
the Beginning of the Fourth Century, Discovered, Edited, Translated
and Annotated by the late W. Cureton_, p. 154 (London, 1864). See
also _The Book of Cerne_, p. 205, _et seq._ (by the erudite
Benedictine, Dom. A. B. Kuypers, Cambridge, England, 1902).
[303] For a critical discussion of the “Legend of Abgar” see _Les
Origines de l’Eglise d’Edesse et La Légende d’ Abgar_ (by the
learned Sulpician, L. J. Tixeront, Paris, 1888).
“The practice of keeping this letter as a philactery prevailed in
England till the last century.... ‘The common people’ there have had
it in their houses in many places in a frame with a picture before it
and they generally with much honesty and devotion regard it as the word
of God and the genuine epistle of Christ.’... I have a recollection of
having seen the same thing in cottages in Shropshire.” Cureton, _op.
cit._, p. 155.
[304] In the province of Osrhoene, about a day’s journey from Edessa,
was a celebrated mart called Batne, where the Indians and the Seres
came to trade with the Edessenes and rich merchants from other
cities at an annual fair which was held in this place in the month
of September. Here, Ammianus Marcellinus informs us “magna promiscuæ
fortunæ convenit multitudo ad commercanda quæ Indi et Seres aliaque
plurima vehi terra marique consueta.” _Rerum Gestarum_, Lib. XIV,
Cap. III, 3.
For an illuminating map showing the importance of Edessa as a trade
center during Roman times, see V. Chapot’s _La Frontière de
L’Euphrate de Pompée à la Conquête Arabe_, facing p. 402 (Paris,
1907).
[305] L. J. Tixeront, _op. cit._, p. 7, _et seq._
[306] _Cf._ _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Record
and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia_, p. 200 (by T. G. Pinches,
London, 1908).
[307] Genesis xi: 31.
[308] Ibid., 17.
[309] Purgatorio, XXVII, 94–108. Dante but follows the teaching of the
Angelic Doctor who, writing on the active and the contemplative life,
declares: “Istæ duæ vitæ significantur per duas uxores Jacob: activa
quidem per Liam, contemplativa vero per Rachelem; et per duas mulieres
quæ Dominum hospitio receperunt: contemplativa quidem per Mariam,
activa vero per Martham.” _Summ. Theol._ Pars II, 2dæ, Q CLXXIX,
Art. i.
[310] _Cf._ _The Book of the Bee_, p. 95–97, from the Syriac of _Mar
Solomon, Bishop of Basra_ (trans. by E. A. W. Budge, Oxford, 1886).
[311] Students of history will remember that the Emperor Carcacalla
was assassinated at Haran by one of his soldiers while on a visit to
the temple of the Moon. The Roman general Crassus suffered a crushing
defeat at the same place and was treacherously slain in the vicinity
while in a conference with a Persian satrap.
[312] “Quæ jam a Mithradati regni temporibus, ne Oriens a Persis
occuparetur, viribus restitit maximis.” Lib. XXV, Cap. IX.
[313] _Cf._ Assemani, _op. cit._, Tom. III, Part II, p. 927, _et seq._
Nisibis, “la grand metropole nestorienne, vit naïtre dans ses murs
la première Université théologique, les premiers cours publics de
théologie. Ce phenomene qui excitait l’admiration et étonnement du
_quæstor sacri palatii_ de Justinien ne peut que nous donner une
idée avantageuse de la culture du clerge nestorien a cette époque de
son histoire.” _Le Christianisme dan l’Empire Perse sous la Dynastie
Sassanide, (224–632)_, p. 301 (by J. Labourt, Paris, 1904).
[314] Dion Cassius, _History of Rome_, Bk. I, XVIII, 26.
[315] Genesis xxxv: 8.
[316] “In such circumstances,” writes one who knew the desert well,
“the mind is influenced through the body. Though your mouth glows and
your skin is parched with heat, yet you feel no languor, the effect of
humid heat; your lungs are lightened, your sight brightens, your memory
recovers its tone and your spirits become exuberant; your fancy and
imagination are powerfully aroused and the wildness and sublimity of
the scenes around you stir up all the energies of your soul--whether
for exertion, danger or strife. Your _morale_ improves; you become
frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded: the hypocritical
politeness and the slavery of civilization are left behind you in the
city.... All feel their hearts dilate and their pulses beat strong
as they look down from their dromedaries upon the glorious desert.
Where do we hear of a traveler being disappointed by it? It is another
illustration of the ancient truth that Nature returns to man, however
unworthily he has treated her. And believe me, when once your tastes
have conformed to the tranquillity of such travel, you will suffer real
pain in returning to the turmoil of civilization. You will anticipate
the bustle and confusion of artificial life, its luxury and its false
pleasures with repugnance. Depressed in spirits you will for a time
after your return feel incapable of bodily or mental exertion. The
air of cities will suffocate you and the care-worn and cadaverous
countenances of citizens will haunt you like a vision of judgment.”
_Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah_,
Vol. I, pp. 150, 151 (by Richard F. Burton, London, 1893).
[317] _A celeritate Tigris incipit vocari. Ita appellant Medi
sagittam._ Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, VI, XXVII.
[318] We have seen in a previous chapter how unfounded is this
statement.
[319] _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, Vol. I, p. 60 (trans. by H. Yule,
London, 1903).
[320] _Geschichte der Ilchaner_, Vol. I, p. 191 (Darmstadt, 1842).
[321] Acts of the Apostles, ii: 9, 11.
[322] See map III of Heussi and Mulert’s _Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte_
for the extensive territory occupied by the Nestorian Church during its
greatest development.
[323] The dwelling of the Patriarch, as described by a noted traveler
of the last century, “is solidly built of hewn-stone and stands on the
very edge of a precipice overhanging a ravine through which winds a
branch of the Zab. A dark vaulted passage led us into a room scarcely
better lighted by a small window closed by a greased sheet of coarse
paper. The tattered remains of a felt carpet, spread in a corner, was
the whole of its furniture. The garments of the Patriarch were hardly
less worn and ragged. Even the miserable allowance of 300 piastres,
about £2 10s., which the Porte had promised to pay him monthly on his
return to the mountains was long in arrears, and he was supported
entirely by the contributions of his faithful but poverty-stricken
flock. Kochanes was, moreover, still a heap of ruins.” _Discoveries
among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, with Travels in Armenia,
Kurdistan and the Desert_, p. 363 (by A. H. Layard, New York, 1856).
[324] “La progression des Chrétians a été la suivante; en 1750, zéro;
en 1856, de 30,000 a 40,000; en 1900, 66,000. Tout donne à espérer
que le retour définitif des Nestoriens à la foi portera bientot et
définitivement ce nombre, si ce n’est deja un fait accomplit, a
140,000.” _Les Missions Catholiques Francaises au XIXe Siècle_, p.
271 (Paris, 1900).
[325] For the dogmatic definitions of the Church at the General
Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon against the heresies of Nestorius and
Eutyches see Denzinger’s _Enchiridion_, pp. 52, 65.
[326] The word Copt is apparently derived from the middle part of the
Greek word _Aigyptos_ which means Egyptian. It is, however, always
used to indicate a member of the Egyptian Monophysite Church.
[327] Melchite is a Græco-Syriac word which signifies imperial. It was
given at the outbreak of the Monophysite schism to those Christians in
Syria, Palestine, and Egypt who accepted the decrees of Chalcedon and
remained loyal to the Emperor in Constantinople and to the Catholic
Church. The name is now applied to the Uniates of these lands.
[328] _Cf._ _Verfassung und gegenwärtiger Bestand Sämtilicler Kirchen
des Orients_, p. 384 (by I. Silbernagl, Regensburg, 1904).
[329] _The Orthodox Eastern Church_, p. 19 (by A. Fortescue, London,
1908).
[330] Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 15.
[331] Not having a hierarchy, the Protestants in Turkey do not
constitute a _Millet_. The Porte has consequently organized them,
consisting chiefly of a small number of converted Armenians, and
Syrians, into a special group under the Minister of Police.
[332] Among Orientals a common designation of Franks, which, since
the time of the Crusades, has been applied to all the inhabitants of
Western Europe.
[333] _Paradiso_, VI, I, 2.
[334] Addressing once a company of bishops Constantine declared: “You
are bishops whose jurisdiction is within the Church; I also am a bishop
ordained by God to overlook whatever is external to the Church.”
Eusebius, _The Life of Constantine_, IV, 24.
[335] Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 28.
[336] _The Churches Separated from Rome_, p. 151 (by L. Duchesne, New
York, 1907).
“For three centuries after the foundation of New Rome,” writes
Freeman, “Latin remained the tongue of government, law and warfare;
and down to the last days of the Empire survivals of its use in that
character still lingered on.... But Greek was from the beginning the
tongue of literature and religion; and, even under Justinian himself,
it began to creep into use as an alternative language of the law of
Rome.--Gradually the Greek tongue displaced Latin for all purposes, but
not till it had received a large infusion of Latin technical terms....
Save this technical Latin infusion the tongue of Constantinople was
thoroughly Greek. The strange spectacle was there to be seen of an
Emperor of the Romans, a Patriarch of New Rome, a Roman Senate and
People glorying in the Roman name, and deriving their whole political
existence from a Roman source, but in whose eyes the speech of Ennius
and Tacitus and Claudian was simply the despised idiom of Western
heretics and barbarians.” _Historical Essays_, Third Series, pp.
248, 249 (London, 1879).
[337] How great was their exasperation at the Pope’s action is evinced
by the language they addressed to Luitprand, Archbishop of Cremona,
when, in 968, he went on an embassy to Constantinople. “But,” they
indignantly declare, “the mad and silly Pope does not know that St.
Constantine transferred the imperial scepter, all the senate and the
whole Roman army hither, and that at Rome he left only vile creatures
such as fishermen, pastrycooks, bird-catchers, bastards, plebeians and
slaves.” _Cf._ Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 94.
[338] _Cf._ _Le Schisme Oriental du XI Siècle_, p. 275 (by L. Brehier,
Paris, 1899).
[339] Now that the crash had come “one asks oneself what else the
Legates could have done. They had waited long enough, and, if ever a
man clearly showed that he wanted schism, it was Cerularius. He had
already excommunicated the Pope by taking his name off the diptychs.
We should note that this is the only sentence that the Roman Church
pronounced against the Eastern Communion. She has never excommunicated
it as such nor the other patriarchs. If they lost her communion it was
because they too, following Cerularius’ example, struck the Pope’s name
from their diptychs.” Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 185.
[340] Although Innocent III, preacher of the Crusade, promptly
excommunicated the Crusaders for their perfidy and treachery, the
Greeks, nevertheless, persisted in declaring that His Holiness was the
real cause of their misfortunes.
[341] According to the custom that subsequently prevailed it was the
Grand Vizier who, in the Sultan’s name, gave the _berat_ to the
newly appointed Patriarch. As to bishops-elect it was obligatory that
they should receive their _berat_ from the government before their
consecration.
[342] Thus, during the seventy-five years between 1625 and 1700,
there were no fewer than 50 patriarchs whose average tenure of office
was a year and a half. Compare this with the long reign--seventy-two
years--of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII whose average tenure of
office was twenty-four years--just thirty-six times as long as that of
the unfortunate Patriarchs in question.
[343] _Hom. II in Ephesios._
[344] “The Holy Father,” as Mgr. Duchesne beautifully declares, “has
put all his heart into it; I might almost say, he had put only his
heart into it.” _Op. cit._, p. 41.
[345] “Eo vel magis quod non ingenti discrimine seiunguntur: imo, si
pauca excipias, sic cetera consentimus, ut in ipsis catholici nominis
vindiciis non raro ex doctrina, ex more, ex ritibus, quibus orientales
utuntur, testimonia atque argumenta promanus.”
[346] Inferno XXVIII, 35.
[347] _Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church_, pp. 2, 30
(London, 1861).
The testimony of Professor H. Gelzer, likewise a Protestant, is
almost the same as that of Dean Stanley. Writing of the monastic
establishments of the Orthodox Church he pertinently inquires: “While
the Catholic Orders as teaching and nursing bodies have become an
important element in the civilization of the nineteenth century, what
have Athos, Sinai, Patmos or Megaspilion been doing? The Greeks often
bitterly complain of the mighty progress of Catholic propaganda, but
they must themselves admit that the best schools and hospitals in
Turkey belong to the Catholic Orders.” _Von Heiligen Berge und aus
Makendonien_, p. 2 (Leipsig, 1904).
[348] _Das Testament Leos_ XIII, in _Reden und Aufsätze_, Vol. II, p.
279 (Geissen, 1904).
[349] Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 432, 433.
[350] Psalms, xliv: 10, “Neque aliud fortasse mirabilius est,”
declares the Sovereign Pontiff, “ad catholicitatis notam in Ecclesia
Dei illustrandam, quam singulare quod ei præbent obsequium dispares
cæremoniarum formæ nobilesque vestustatis linguæ, ex ipsa Apostolorum
et Patrum consuetudine nobiliares; fere ad imitationem obsequii
lectissimi quod Christi divino Ecclesiæ auctori, exhibitum est
nascenti, quum Magi ex varii Orientis plagis devecti venerunt ...
adorare eum.”
[351] St. Paul to the Ephesians, iv: 13.
[352] St. John’s Gospel, xvii: 20, 21.
[353] Jonah, iv: 11. Those “that knew not how to distinguish between
their right hand and their left,” is supposed to refer to young
children.
[354] Genesis x: 11.
[355] iii: 19.
[356] ii: 13–15.
[357] _Anabasis_, Bk. III, Chap. 4. _Cf._ also _Travels in the Track of
the Ten Thousand_, p. 139 _et seq._ (by W. F. Ainsworth, London, 1844).
[358] _Charon_, 23.
[359] Even Cicero, declares: “Et apud Herodotum, patrem historiæ ...
sunt innumerabiles fabulæ.” _De Legisbus_ Lib. I, Cap. I.
[360] Arabian writers, it is true, had agreed “during nine hundred
years, in identifying the mounds on the east bank of the Tigris
opposite Mosul with the ruins of Nineveh” but their views were so far
from meeting with general acceptance that so late as 1843 the great
French explorer, Botta, was convinced when he uncovered the wonderful
palace of Sargon II, King of Assyria, B. C. 721–705, that the site of
Nineveh was occupied by the ruins of Khorsabad. But the noted English
investigator, Layard, “contrary to the teachings of Arabian and Syrian
historians and local tradition,” was equally positive that “the ruins
of Nineveh were buried under the mound of Nimroud,” which is twenty
miles to the south of the actual site of the famous Assyrian capital
which was so long the rival and eventually the conqueror of Babylon.
_Cf._ _By Nile and Tigris_, Vol. II, p. 8 _et seq._, 15,
16 (by E. A. Wallis Budge, London, 1920).
[361] _The Buried City of the East: Nineveh_, Preface (London, 1851).
[362] _Nineveh and Its Palaces. The Discoveries of Botta and Layard
Applied to the Elucidation of Holy Writ_, p. 1 _et seq._ (by J.
Bonomi, London, 1852).
[363] “At the end of the seventeenth century, B.C., Asurbanipal’s
sculptors at Nineveh were representing horses which the frieze of
the Parthenon can hardly equal, and lions which no sculptor has ever
surpassed in careful observations and truthful delineation.” _The
Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 536 (by H. R. Hall, London,
1913).
[364] vi: 1.
[365] See his _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, pp.
342–345 (London, 1853); _cf._ also _Hormuzd Rassam’s Asshur and the
Land of the Nimrod_, p. 31 (New York, 1897), which gives an account
of the discovery of more tablets, among which were the famed Deluge
tablets.
[366] Relaçam em que se tratam as guerras e grandes victorias que
alcançou o grãde rey da Persia Xa Abbas do grão Turco Mahometto and seu
Filho Amethe, pello Padre F. Antonio de Gouvea (Lisboa, 1611).
[367] _Purchas His Pilgrimes_, Part II, pp. 1533, 1534 (London, 1625).
[368] As to the signification of the strange, wedge-shaped character
described by the noted Italian traveler, Pietro della Valle admits that
he knows nothing. In the fifteenth chapter of his _Viaggi_ he
frankly declares: “E queste iscritzioni in que lingua e lettera siano
non si sa perchè è caratere oggi ignoto.”
[369] _Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique_, p.
145 _et seq._ (London, 1638).
[370] Chardin became an English citizen and achieved such fame as a
traveler that a tablet was dedicated to his memory in Westminster Abbey
bearing the legend “Sir John Chardin--_nomen sibi fecit eundo_.”
[371] _Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th Century_, pp. 23, 24
(by H. V. Hilprecht, Philadelphia, 1903).
How Grotefend achieved such marvelous success when others, apparently
more competent than he, had failed has been explained by the fact that
“he early displayed a remarkable aptitude for the solution of riddles:
a peculiar talent which he shared in common with Dr. Hincks, who also
acquired great distinction as a cuneiform scholar.” _The Discovery
and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions_, p. 169
(by A. J. Booth, London, 1902).
Dr. R. W. Rogers, in his instructive work, _A History of Babylonia
and Assyria_, Vol. I, p. 61 (New York, 1915), referring to the same
subjects, writes:
“It were difficult, if not impossible, to define the qualities of
mind which must inhere in the decipherer of a forgotten language. He
is not necessarily a great scholar, though great scholars have been
successful decipherers. He may know but little of the languages that
are cognate with the one whose secrets he is trying to unravel. He may,
indeed, know nothing of them, as has several times been the case. But
the patience, the persistence, the power of combination, the divine
gift of insight, the historical sense, the feeling for archæological
indications, these must be present, and all of these were present in
the extraordinary man, Grotefend, who now attacked the problem that had
baffled so many.”
[372] Hilprecht, _op. cit._, p. 71; _cf._ _A Memoir of Major General
Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson_, pp. 143–148, 153–157 (by his brother,
Canon George Rawlinson, London, 1898); Booth, _op. cit._, pp. 106–114.
[373] Although it was supposed that this prize, awarded by so learned
a body as the French Institute, would be tantamount to _une sanction
qui devrait dissiper toutes les susceptibilités_, many remained
as skeptical as ever and continued “to decry a language in which one
can never know if a syllable is ideographic or phonetic, and, when
phonetic, which of two or three different values it may have in that
place.” _Cf._ A. J. Booth, _op. cit._, p. 416.
[374] _Op. cit._, pp. 118, 119.
[375] _New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land_, p. 10 (by B. T.
Evetts, New York).
[376] _The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 110 (by M.
Jastrow, Philadelphia, 1915).
[377] A few years before his death, when presiding at the commencement
exercises of the College of Dole, in the Department of the Jura in
which he was born and brought up, Pasteur told his youthful audience:
“When one has studied much, one comes back to the faith of a Breton
peasant; as to myself, had I studied more I should have the faith of a
Breton peasant-woman.” _The Ave Maria_, February 14, 1920.
[378] _Bible, Science and Faith_, p. 314, 315 (Baltimore, 1895). _Cf._
also _Evolution and Dogma_, Chap. VIII (by J. A. Zahm, Chicago, 1896).
[379] _Babel und Bibel_, p. 4 (Leipzig, 1903).
[380] A name which, as we have seen, is also applied to the Euphrates.
[381] _Cf._ R. I. Wilberforce in _The Five Empires_, Chaps. XV, XVIII
(London, 1852).
[382] _Alexander the Great_, p. 368 (by B. I. Wheeler, New York,
1900).
[383] Creasy’s _Decisive Battles of the World_, p. 79 (New York,
1899).
It was at Arbela, where was to be settled once for all the question of
world supremacy, that Alexander, when counseled by his generals to make
a night attack on Darius, gave the famous answer οὐ κλέπτο τἠν νίκην--I
steal no victory--words that were his motto during his eventful and
brilliant career.
[384] _Voyages en Turquie, en Perse et aux Indes_, Vol I, p. 185
(Paris, 1677).
[385] Die Bedeutung des heutigen Namen’s Kal. ‘at Schergat ist bis
jetzt unaufgeklärt geblieben und durfte vielleicht eine Altassyrische
Reminiscenz bergen. _Vom Mittelmer zum Persischen_ Golf. Vol.
II, p. 210 (by M. von Oppenheim, Berlin, 1900). His countryman, Baron
Thielmann, writing of the same ruins a quarter of a century earlier,
declares: “This great field of ruin with its pyramid looks truly
venerable, but science has as yet made no discoveries here which
could help us solve the mystery of this remnant of an ancient era.”
_Journey in the Caucasus, Persia and Turkey in Asia_, Vol. II, p.
136 (London, 1875).
[386] _Cf._ Sayce _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion
as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, p. 122
(London, 1898).
[387] See Jastrow, _op. cit._, p. 229.
[388] See W. Andræ’s _Der Anu-Adad-Tempel in Assur_ (Leipsic, 1909);
and his _Die Festungswerke von Assur_ (Leipsic, 1913).
[389] _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 328.
[390] See _Die Stelenreien in Assur_, p. ii (by Walter Andræ, Leipsic,
1913).
[391] “Many other works of Semiramis,” writes Strabo, “besides those
of Babylon, are extant in almost every part of this continent, as,
for example, earth-works which are called mounds of Semiramis, walls
and fortresses, aqueducts and cisterns for water, stair-like roads
over mountains, canals communicating with rivers and lakes; roads and
bridges.” _Geography_, Bk. XVI, Chap. II.
[392] Polyænus _Strategemeta_, VIII, 26.
[393] _Cf._ _La Légende de Semiramis_, pp. 22, 23 (by François
Lenormant), in _Mémoires de l’Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres
et des Beaux Arts de Belgique_, Tom. XL (1873).
[394] A. H. Sayce in _Herodotos, with Notes, Introductions and
Appendices_, p. 105 (London, 1883).
[395] Ibid., p. 303.
[396] Ibid., p. 362.
[397] Mr. Robertson Smith in _The English Historical Review_, Vol.
II, p. 305, April, 1887.
[398] _Op. cit._, p. 317.
[399] As many fantastic stories are related about Dietrich von
Bern--Theodoric the Great, King of the East Goths--as there are about
Semiramis. As the Assyrian queen was said to have been nursed by doves
in her infancy and to have been transformed into a dove after her death
so, the German legends have it, Dietrich von Bern was descended from a
spirit and made his exit from the world on a black horse. In Lusatia
the mythical _Wild Huntsman_ who, during violent storms, rides
furiously across the heavens is called Dietrich von Bern. Living so
long after Semiramis it is more surprising that his life should be made
the theme of Middle High German poems and Old Norse sagas than that the
Assyrian queen should have been made the subject of oriental myth and
Greek legend.
[400] Lehmann-Haupt in his interesting and illuminating lecture on
_Die historische Semiramis und ihre Zeit_, which was delivered
before the _Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft_ in Berlin, February
6, 1910, declares: “Von der sagenhaften Ümhüllung befreit, sehen
wir Semiramis vor uns als eine Herrschergestalt, die zu einer Zeit,
da sonst der Frau eine Beteiligung am öffentlichen Leben versagt
war, die Geschichte zweier, vornehmlich durch ihre Klugheit und
Umsicht verbundener Reiche in Krieg und Frieden entscheidendend und
durchgreifend geleitet hat.” P. 68 (Tübingen, 1910).
How different is this conclusion of the learned German, which is based
on the brilliant discoveries of Andræ and his colleagues, from that
of the distinguished Orientalist, F. Lenormant, who, as the result
of an exhaustive study of Semiramis, makes the _ex cathedra_
statement “_ce personage divin ... doit être definitivement rayé de
l’histoire_--this divine personage ought to be definitely expunged
from history.” _Op. cit._, p. 68.
[401] _Geography_, Bk. XVI, Chap. I, IX.
[402] Arrian’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, Bk. VII, Chap. VII.
[403] _Voyage au Levant_, Tom. III, p. 200 (Amsterdam, 1727).
[404] Ibid., III, p. 183.
[405] So hot is it in Susa, the Greek geographer writes, that “lizards
and serpents at midday in the summer ... cannot cross the streets quick
enough to prevent their being burnt to death midway by the heat.”
_Op. cit._, Bk. XV, Chap. III.
[406] “There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the
desert, the ‘Zauba’ah,’ as the Arabs call it. Devils or pillars of
sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high, rush over
the plain lashing the sand at their base like a sea surging under
a furious whirlwind; shearing the grass clean away from the roots,
tearing up trees which are whirled like leaves and sticks in the air,
and sweeping away tents and houses as if they were bits of paper. At
last the columns join at the top and form, perhaps three thousand feet
above the earth, a gigantic cloud of yellow sand which obliterates not
only the horizon but even the midday sun. These sand-spouts are the
terror of travelers.” _Thousand and One Nights_, Vol. I, p. 114
(by Richard F. Burton, Benares, 1885).
[407] _Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the Site of
Ancient Nineveh with a Journal of a Voyage down the Tigris to Bagdad_,
Vol. II, p. 148 (London, 1836).
[408] _Journey in the Caucasus, Persia and Turkey in Asia_, Vol. II, p.
138 (London, 1875).
[409] _Convito_, IV., 2.
[410] _Divina Commedia_, IV, v. 121, _et seq._
[411] Moore’s _Lalla Rookh_, p. 181 (New York, 1890).
[412] _Life and Letters of E. B. Cowell_, p. 318 (by G. Cowell, London,
1904).
[413] Daniel, iii.
[414] _Op. cit._, II, 139.
[415] Gertrude L. Bell, in _Amurath to Amurath_, p. 246 (London,
1911).
[416] “Le Khalife, alors tout-puissant, vivait là au milieu de ses
milices et de tous les grands scheiks de son royaume, plus entouré
de courtisans que Louis XIV à Versailles. Il réservait d’ailleurs
toutes ses faveurs à ceux qui venaient embellir Samara en coustruisant
quelques belles residences dans le voisinage du palais.” _Description
du Palais de Al-Moutasim Fils d’Haroun-al-Raschid à Samara et de
Quelques Monuments Arabs connus de la Mesopotamia_, p. 23 and plate
XIV (par M. H. Violet, Paris, 1909). _Cf._ Sarre und Herzfeld’s
illuminating monograph on Samara.
[417] _Cf._ Von Oppenheim, _op. cit._, II, p. 221.
[418] _Op. cit._, p. 381.
[419] _Cf._ _Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia,
Chaldea and Armenia_, Vol. II, p. 152 (by W. F. Ainsworth, London,
1842).
[420] _Les Missions Catholiques Françaises au XIXe Siècle_, Tom.
I, p. 223, _et seq._ (Paris, 1900).
[421] _Cf._ _Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman_, Tom. I, p. 172 _et seq._
(by the Vicomte De la Jonquière, Paris, 1914).
[422] _Du Caucasus au Golfe Persique à travers l’Arménie, le Kurdistan
et la Mesopotamie_, p. 458 _et seq._ (by P. Müller-Simonis and H.
Hyvernat, Washington, 1892).
[423] See the interesting work of Mme. Dieulafoy on _La Perse, la
Chaldée et la Susiane_, p. 576 _et seq._ (Paris, 1887).
[424] _Turquie Agonisante_, p. 137 (Paris, 1913).
[425] _Baghdad during the Abbassid Caliphate from Contemporary Arabic
and Persian Sources_, pp. 12–14 (by G. Le Strange, Oxford, 1900).
[426] Le Strange, _op. cit._, p. 64 _et seq._
[427] Le Strange, _op. cit._, p. 71.
[428] _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, Vol. I, p. 63 (translated and
edited by H. Yule, London, 1903).
[429] _Bibliothèque Orientale_, Tom. I, p. 326 (The Hague, 1777).
[430] _Op. cit._, I, 72.
[431] _History of the Mongols from the Ninth to the Nineteenth
Century_, Part III, p. 127 (by H. H. Howorth, London, 1888).
[432] See _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, on a _Greek
Embassy to Bagdad 917, A. D._ (January, 1897).
[433] _Cf._ Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_,
Chap. LII.
[434] At this period, Sir Richard Burton tells us, London and Paris
were in a state of quasi-savagery and “their palatial halls were spread
with rushes.”
[435] Bagdad, at the zenith of its grandeur under Harun-al-Rashid,
was the worthy successor of Babylon and Nineveh. It “had outrivalled
Damascus, ‘the Smile of the Prophet,’” and “was essentially a city
of pleasure, a Paris of the ninth century.” “Thither flocked from
all parts of the oriental world the most noted and capable poets,
musicians and artificers of the time; and the first thought of the
Arabian or Persian craftsman who had completed some specially curious
or attractive specimen of his art was to repair to the capital of the
Muslim world, to submit it to the Commander of the Faithful from whom
he rarely failed to receive a rich reward for his labors. Surrounded by
pleasure-gardens and groves of orange, tamarisk, and myrtle, refreshed
by an unfailing luxuriance of running streams, supplied either by
art or nature, the great city on the Tigris is the theme of many an
admiring ode or laudatory ghazel; and the poets of the time all agree
in describing it as being, under the rule of the great Caliph, a sort
of terrestrial paradise of idlesse and luxury, where, to use their own
expressions, the ground was irrigated with rose-water and the dust of
the roads was musk, where flowers and verdure overhung the ways and the
air was perpetually sweet with the many-voiced song of birds, and where
the chirp of lutes, the dulcet warble of flutes and the silver sound of
singing houris rose and fell in harmonious cadence from every corner of
the streets of palaces that stood in vast succession in the midst of
their gardens and orchards, gifted with perpetual verdure by the silver
abundance of the Tigris, as it sped its arrowy flight through the
thrice-blest town.” _Thousand and One Nights_, Vol. IX, pp. 333,
334 (translated by John Payne, London, 1884).
[436] _Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe_,
Vol. I, p. 30 (New York, 1827).
[437] _Haroun-Al-Raschid, Caliph of Bagdad_, p. 53 (by E. H.
Palmer, London, 1881).
[438] Palmer, _op. cit._, p. 83.
[439] This crime, declares Sir Richard Burton, “stands out in ghastly
prominence as one of the most terrible tragedies recorded in history
and its horrible details make men write passionately on the subject to
this our day.” _Thousand and One Nights_, Vol. X, p. 142 (Benares,
1885).
[440] Sismondi, _op. cit._, I, 30.
[441]
_Tamed Greece to tame her victress now began,_
_And with her arts fair Latium over-ran._
HORACE, _Epistles_, Book II, 1.
[442] Gibbon, _op. cit._, Chap. LII.
[443] See D’Herbelot’s _Bibliothèque Orientale_, s. v. “Honain.”
[444] _Cf._ _A History of Greece_, Vol. II, p. 224 (by G.
Finlay, Oxford, 1877).
[445] _The History and Conquests of the Saracens_, p. 157 (London,
1877).
[446] Longfellow has chosen the grim episode said to have been
connected with the tragic death of Al-Mostassem at the hands of Hulagu
Khan for one of his well-known poems in which he makes his victor and
executioner address the avaricious Caliph in the following words:
_I said to the Caliph, “Thou art old,_
_Thou hast no need of so much gold;_
_Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden it here,_
_Till the breath of battle was hot and near,_
_But have sown through the land these useless hoards,_
_To spring into shining blades and swords,_
_And keep thine honor sweet and clear.”_
* * * * *
_Then into his dungeon I locked the drone,_
_And left him there to feed all alone,_
_In the honey cells of his golden hive;_
_Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan,_
_Was heard from those massive walls of stone,_
_Nor again was the Caliph seen alive._
[447] Freeman, _op. cit._, p. 132.
[448] “Tamerlan fit passer au fil de l’epée tous sea Habitants, n’
epargnant ni age, ni sexe, ni condition et fit raser rez pied, rez
terre tous ses principaux bätimens.” D’Herbelot, _op. cit._, s. v.
“Timour.”
[449] _Cf._ Gibbon, _op. cit._, Chap. LXV. “The ground which
had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by
his”--Timour’s--“abominable trophies--by columns or pyramids of human
heads.” Ibid., Chap. LXV. “The people of Ispahan supplied seventy
thousand human skulls for the structure of several lofty towers.”
Ibid., Chap. XXXIV.
[450] Howorth, _op. cit._, Part III, p. 1.
[451] _Cf._ Benjamin of Tudela, _op. cit._, p. 98 _et seq._ According
to the Babylonian Talmud which “became the main factor in the history
and development of Judaism,” the Jews of Babylon passed for a purer
race than those of Palestine.
[452] “_Tous les pays_,” it is said in the French translation
of the Babylonian Talmud, “_sont comme de la pâte relativement à
la Palestine, mais ce pays l’est relativement à la Babylonie._”
_Cf._ _Géographie du Talmud_, p. 320 (by A. Neubauer, Paris,
1868).
[453] The clever Ottoman author, Halil Halid, pertinently writes in
reference to this subject: “In the language of diplomacy the French
term ‘_action civilisatrice_’ may still have an impressive
sound, but owing to the free use made of it by every politician and
journalist, the sense of the term has been much contaminated with
vulgarity. The dignified charm of the English political literature
dealing with the affairs of the East has also begun to degenerate into
something like a commonplace. The notion intended by the term is this,
that when one of the mighty Powers of Christendom finds it incumbent
upon itself to take under its patronizing ægis the internal affairs
of a Muslim nation, which is incapable of holding its own, freedom,
justice and the spread of civilization will either immediately or
gradually follow the introduction of its good rule and signs of the
public well-being will spring up here, there and everywhere.
“There is no necessity to cite here any examples of the astounding work
which the civilizing Powers are doing in Eastern countries, as any one
who studies the political settlement of these countries can find ample
instances for himself. It should only be remarked that all the pains
taken in this direction are at the expense of the sovereign rights and
national independence of the people which submit to the civilizing
tutelage.” _The Crescent versus the Cross_, pp. 184, 185 (London,
1907).
[454] “Neejdee horses are especially esteemed for great speed and
endurance of fatigue; indeed in this latter quality none can come up to
them. To pass twenty-four hours on the road without drink and without
flagging is certainly something; but to keep up the same abstinence and
labor conjoined under the burning Arabian sky for forty-eight hours at
a stretch is, I believe, peculiar to animals of the breed.” _Personal
Narrative of a Journey Through Central and Eastern Arabia_, p. 310
(by W. G. Palgrave, London, 1869).
[455] The most prized horses in Arabia belong, it is said, to the
_Khamsa_, namely, to one of the _Kehilan_ breeds, which,
according to tradition, are descended from Mohammed’s five favorite
mares.
[456] _Cf._ E. Reclus, _Asia_, Vol. IV, p. 466 (New York,
1855).
[457] _Op. cit._, pp. 25, 26.
[458] See _La Province de Bagdad_, p. 108 (by Habib K. Chicha,
Cairo, 1908).
[459] “Who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a
husbandman, planted a paradise, in Eden towards the East, and placed
in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the
fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life?” _De Principiis_, Bk. IV,
Chap. I.
[460] _De Genesi ad Litteram_, Lib. VIII, Cap. I.
[461] _Wo lag das Paradies_, p. 44 (Leipsic, 1881).
[462] Lib. II, dist. 17, c. 5, “Unde volunt in orientali parte esse
paradisum, longo interjacente spatio vel maris vel terræ a regionibus
quas incolant hominea secretum, et in alto situm, usque ad lunarem
circulum pertingentem, unde nec aquæ diluvii illuc pervenerunt.”
[463] _Cf._ _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, p. 255 _et
seq._ (by S. Baring Gould, London, 1892).
[464] _The Voyage and Travaile of Sir John Mandeville_, Chap. XXX.
[465] See _Select Letters of Christopher Columbus_, pp. 141–147
(translated by R. H. Major and printed for the Hakluyt Society, London,
1870).
[466] _La Nouvelle Revue_, April 15, 1893.
[467] _Atlantis, The Antediluvian World_, p. 455 (New York, 1884).
[468] _Popular Science Monthly_, p. 678, September, 1883.
[469] _Paradise Found_, p. 433 (by W. F. Warren, Boston, 1885).
[470] _The Human Species_, p. 175–177 (New York, 1890).
[471] _Histoire Ancienne de l’Orient_, Tom. I, p. 96 _et
seq._ (Paris, 1881).
[472] See chapter on The Site of the Garden of Eden, in _Science
and the Church_ (by J. A. Zahm, Chicago, 1896), from which I have
extensively drawn for the present treatment of the subject.
[473] _Cf._ _Dictionnaire de la Bible_, Tom. IV, Col. 2121
(pub. by F. Vigoroux, Paris, 1908).
[474] See _Reise der K. preussichen Gesellschaft nach Persia_,
Tom. I, p. 146 (by H. Brugsch, Leipsic, 1862).
[475] _Cf._ Dom Calmet, _Commentaire littéral sur la Genèse_,
p. 61 (Paris, 1715).
[476] Duo sunt amnes qui in unum coeunt deinde abeunt in diversas
partes. Ita flumen unum est in confluente; duo autem inferioribus
alveis sunt capita, et duo versus mare postquam rursus longius
dividi incipiunt. See his _Commentarius in Genesin_. The map of
Babylonia, which accompanies the text renders the author’s view quite
clear, although it does not specify the site of the Garden of Eden.
[477] See _The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments_,
pp. 95, 96 (by A. H. Sayce, London, 1894). _Cf._ _The Old
Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria
and Babylonia_, Chaps. I, II (by T. G. Pinches, London, 1908);
_The Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 305 (by George Smith,
London, 1876).
[478] Ibid., p. 97.
[479] _Op. cit._, pp. 97, 98.
[480] _Modern Science and Bible Lands_, pp. 197, 198 (New York,
1889).
[481] _Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens von den ältesten
Zeiten bis zum Propheten Muhammed_, Vol. II, p. 317, _et seq._
(Berlin, 1890).
[482] _Aufsätze und Abhandlungen_, p. 273 _et seq._ (Munich,
1901).
[483] “E chiaro che il narratore nel detto brano della Genesi ha avuto,
dinazi agli occhi un luogo ben noto, e si e data la pena di discriverlo
mimutamente, affinche non potessero surgere dubbi sul paese che egli
voleva indicare.” _Studi di Storia Orientale_, Vol. I, p. 121
(Milan, 1911).
[484] Referring to the discovery of the word Eden--Edina--in cuneiform
inscriptions the distinguished Assyriologist, T. G. Pinches, _op.
cit._, p. 72, writes: “That we shall ultimately find other instances
of Eden as a geographical name, occurring by itself and not in
composition with another word, as in the expression _Sipar Edina_,
and even a reference to _gannat Edinni_, ‘the Garden of Eden,’ is
to be expected.”
[485] Purgatorio, XXXIII, 145.
[486] So called because of an Eastern tradition that it was the
plantain and not the apple which was the forbidden fruit in Paradise.
It is also known as Adam’s fig.
[487] _Paradise Lost_, Bk. IV.
[488] Nature herself confesses to have given the tenderest hearts to
the human race, as she gave them tears; this is the best part of our
faculties. _Satire XV_, vv. 131–133.
[489] According to Dr. Fries, an eminent German scholar, all
games of ball are traceable back to an old light myth which was
presumably Babylonian in origin: “_Alles Ballspiel_,” he
writes, “_ja bis herab zum Lawn-Tenis auf denselben Gedanken-den
Lichtkampf-zurückgeht._” _Studien zur Odyssee_, Vol. I, p. 324
(Leipsic, 1910).
[490] _The Excavations at Babylon_, p. 15 (London, 1914).
[491] “But the devils believed not, they taught men sorcery and that
which was sent down to the two angels at Babel, Harut and Marut.”
_The Koran_, Sura II, 96.
[492] Chap. XIII, vv. 19–21. In lieu of the word “satyrs” the
_Vulgate_ has _pilosi_--the hairy ones--which is more in
keeping with the original Hebrew text.
[493] Genesis xi: 4.
[494] Ερημία μεγάλη ἐστιν ἡ μεγάλη πόλις, Bk. XVI, I, 5.
[495] _The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries
of the English Nation_, Vol. X, Part I, p. 63 (collected by Richard
Hakluyt, Edinburgh, 1889).
[496] “The inhabitants of these parts are as fond of attributing every
vestige of antiquity to Nimrod as those of Egypt are to Pharaoh.” Rich,
_Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon_ (London, 1818).
[497] _Op. cit._, Tom. I, p. 382 _et seq._
[498] That Della Valle had no doubt that the mound of Babil was really
the ruin of the Tower of Babel is quite evident from the positive
statement which he makes to this effect: “che sia quella Babel antica è
la torre di Nembrotto, non c’è dubbio, secondo me, perche oltre che il
sito lo dimostra, da’ paesani ancora oggidi è conisciuta per tale, ed
in Arabico è chiamata volgarmente Babel.” _Op. cit._, p. 384.
[499] Koldewey, _op. cit._, p. 11, _et seq._
[500] _Op. cit._, p. 101.
[501] _Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia_,
Vol. II, p. 365 (by Robert Ker Porter, London, 1822).
[502] _Op. cit._, p. 317. The Jews of Babylonia call the tower of
Birs-Nimrud “Nebuchadnezzar’s prison,” for what reason is not clear.
[503] _The Old Testament in the Light of Historical Records and
Legends of Assyria and Babylonia_, p. 138 (by T. G. Prinches,
London, 1908).
[504] _Observations Connected with the Astronomy and Ancient History,
Sacred and Profane, on the Ruins of Babylon_, p. 2 (by T. Maurice,
London, 1816).
[505] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 336.
[506] _Cf._ _Expedition de Mesopotamie_, Vol. I, Lib. I (Paris, 1863).
[507] See also _Die Tempel von Babylon and Borsippa_, p. 59 (by
Dr. Koldewey, Leipsic, 1911), that speaks of Oppert’s _verkehrter
Stadtplan von Babylon_ and who declares that Borsippa, as
an independent city, bore the same relation to Babylon as does
Charlottenburg to Berlin.
[508] _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. I, 178, 179.
[509] _Library_, Lib. II, Chap. VII.
[510] Rich, _op. cit._, p. 43.
[511] _De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni_, Lib. V, Cap. I.
[512] _The Geographical System of Herodotus Examined and
Explained_, p. 347.
[513] _Op. cit._, p. 2.
[514] _Im Lande des Einstigen Paradieses_, p. 30 (Stuttgart,
1903). According to Oppert the great wall of Babylon embraces an area
fifteen times as great as that of Paris in 1850 and as extended as that
of the entire department of the Seine. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 234.
[515] _Op. cit._, p. 5.
[516] _Op. cit._, II, 8.
[517] Koldewey, _op. cit._, p. 54.
[518] Arrian’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, Bk. VII, Chap. XXVI.
[519] According to the measurements of Rich, the current of the
Euphrates runs at a medium rate of about two knots an hour while that
of the Tigris has a maximum velocity of full seven knots.
[520] _Commentary on Isaias_, Bk. V, Chap. XIII, _Patrologiæ
Latinæ_, Vol. XXIV (Migne, Paris, 1865).
[521] _Op. cit._, Bk. I, Chap. 181.
[522] _Geography_, Bk. XVI, Chap. I, Sec. 5.
[523] _Op. cit._, p. 196.
[524] Ibid., p. 196.
[525] “Principio Assyrii”--the Chaldeans--“propter planitiem
magnitudinemque regionum quos incolebant, cum cœlum ex omni parte
patens et apertum intuerentur, trajectiones motusque stellarum
observaverunt.” _De Divinatione_, Lib. I.
[526] _Op. cit._, Lib. V, Cap. I.
[527] _Op. cit._, p, 103.
[528] For a description of the ruins of Cuzco and the Great Chimu, as
compared with those of Babylon, see _Along the Andes and Down the
Amazon_, Chaps. XIII, XV (by J. A. Zahm, New York, 1911).
[529] _The History and Conquests of the Saracens_, p. 2 _et
seq._ (by E. A. Freeman, London, 1877).
[530] _Babel and Bibel_, p. 36, 37 (London, 1903).
[531] _The Archæology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions_, p. 111
(London, 1908).
[532] Entitled _Der babylonische Ursprung der ägyptischen Kultur_
(1892).
[533] Pliny, speaking of Belus, says: “Inventor hic fuit sideralis
scientiæ, Naturalis Historiæ,” Lib. VI. Cap. 30.
[534] _Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans_, p. 8
(New York, 1912).
[535] See especially _Astronomisches aus Babylon, oder das Wissen der
Chaldäer uber den gestirnten Himmel_ (by J. Epping, in collaboration
with J. Straszmaier, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1889); _Die Babylonische
Mondrechnung_ (by F. Kugler, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1900).
[536] _Cf._ Dumont _op. cit._, p. 60.
[537] A comparison of the lunar periods as given by Babylonian and by
modern astronomers will show how exact were the calculations of the
observers of ancient Chaldea.
Periods as calculated by Babylonian astronomers:
Mean sidereal month 27 days, 7 hours, 43’ 14″
Mean synodic month 29 days, 12 hours, 44’ 31.3″
Mean draconitic month 27 days, 5 hours, 5’ 35.8″
Mean anomalistic month 27 days, 13 hours, 18’ 34.9″
Periods as calculated by modern astronomers:
Mean sidereal month 27 days, 7 hours, 43’ 11.5″
Mean synodic month 29 days, 12 hours, 44’ 2.9″
Mean draconitic month 27 days, 5 hours, 5’ 36″
Mean anomalistic month 27 days, 13 hours, 18’ 39.3″
From the foregoing figures it is seen that the maximum difference
of time, as given by ancient and modern observers, is less than a
half minute; the minimum one-fifth of a second! See Kugler’s _Die
Babylonische Mondrechnung_, pp. 24, 40, 46.
[538] Kugler _op. cit._, p. 206.
[539] Hammurabi’s code which is carefully engraved on a large stele
of black diorite was found by M. de Morgan and the distinguished
Dominican archæologist, Father Scheil, among the ruins of Susa--the
Susan of the Bible--whither it had been carried from Babylon as loot
by the Elamites. When found in December, 1901, and January, 1902, it
was in fragments but the parts were easily rejoined. In October, 1902,
there appeared an admirable translation of it by Father Scheil which
everywhere excited the greatest interest among scholars both of the Old
and the New World. In many respects, it is the most interesting and
valuable inscribed monument of old Babylonia which has yet been brought
to light.
[540] _Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters_, pp.
vii, viii (by C. H. W. Johns, New York, 1904).
[541] _Op. cit._, p. 186.
[542] _Apocalypse_, xvii: 5; xviii: 21.
[543] _Daniel_ iv: 27, 28.
[544] Chap. li: 58.
[545] Chap. li: 37.
[546] Chap. li: 62.
[547] _Psalm_ cxviii: 89.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the
original.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.