AS TO THE TRADITIONS CONCERNING THE PATRIARCHS OF THE PRE-DILUVIAN AGE FOUND IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

There are in the early part of the Book of Genesis what appear to be two lists of Pre-diluvian patriarchs, descending from Adam, the one through Cain and the other through Seth, but which may, perhaps, be understood as representing only one.

Buttman observed that as both lists have at the end Lemach so the preceding links from Cain or Cainan downwards, correspond exactly with each other, excepting that in the first three after Cainan the order of the names are different. He also observed that the same names, Adam, Seth and Enos, correspond in the first three links of the Elohistic record. Further than this notice Buttman did not go in the matter; but mature research has proven unmistakably the name Seth to be that of the oldest Shemitic and Egyptian God; and this also suggests to our mind that the son of Seth is no other than Enos, the Man. Enos is said to be an ordinary Aramaic word for Man as a Hebrew word is Adam. But the word appears more correctly to mean son of Saedhamh or Adam. Aenghaes or Aensheach is Enos, or Enoch, the sh in the middle of the last word not being sounded in the old language.

The following are those two registers of ped igrees as they have come down to us:

It is supposed the two versions, the Jehovistic and the Elohistic led the way to two independent series, which have the same starting point, and in which, leaving out of the question the change in the order of the intermediate names, the only difference is that division of mankind before the Flood is represented as taking place at the end of the one in the persons of the three sons of Lemech, namely, Jabal, Jubal and Tubal-Cain, whereas in the other, the separation takes place through the three sons of Noah, Shem, Cham, and Yapheth. If there should be thought to be any discrepancy in the name of the Creator it may, it is suggested, be kept in mind that the one truth which pervades them both is that God created man in his own image. In one of the traditions the Creator is put down as Jahveh Elohim and man himself Adam, while in the other he is called Seth and man Enoch. The first refers to the primeval country, the land of Aram, the second to Palestine, Canaan, the land of Seth, Suthech. If Noah be omitted in the first record, is that a reason for saying it excludes him? The one only treats of the early world, before the Deluge, the other includes this. The following includes some of the explanations of the names of the Patriarchs:

Cham is the dark, the black.

Shem, the illustrious, having a name.

Yapheth, the bright, the fair.

We have here the dark, the red or glorious, and the faircomplexioned, which may be thought to represent the colors of men in the habitable portions of the earth, from the equatorial outwards towards the polar regions.

In the view we are now presenting Yaveh and Yaveh Elohim as well as Seth, the names of the Deity in the different records are to be considered in the ideal character; so Adam, Enosh and Chavah (Eve), the life-giving, the mother of all living, as well as Hebel (Abel), the vanishing, belong to the same category.

There are many things which concur to lead investigators to the conclusion that the Jehovistic record is the original; one of which things is the spelling of the other names it affords.

The name Cain or Quain has in that form for one of its meanings a Smith. It is, therefore, by some explained as in the compound Tubal-Cain, as an Artist, the Technites of the Phoenician Mythology. The form Cainan is a diminutive of Cain and is doubtless sometimes used interchangeably with it. Mr. Bryant,

however, in his Mythology, gives us to understand that Josephus in his original copy, translated Cain as Cais, which suggests Caeth for Saeth as Cuth for Cush. Cain is also said to have gone to the land of Nod, which doubtless means that the land was so called after his name and that his name was one of the forms of which Seth is the principal. The root of Seth is Saedh, first root Edh, which unaspirated we have as first root in our name Edward, which latter we call, briefly, Ned. This land of Nod or Ned, too, is eastward of Eden, which suggests the name Seth and which means East, this latter being but a slight transposition of the letters, and the East meaning the Sun (Saeth, East) rising; (Saethan = Sun).

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Moreover, if in the Gaelic tongue we put the name Saeth in the genitive case after Mac and add the diminutive termination, an, which is sign of the genitive, we shall have Mac Shaithan, which (the sh and th being silent) is pronounced Mac Cathain or Mac Con. Hence in the old Gaelic pedigrees the Clan Saeth or Caeth or Cathan is Clan Conn. For example in about three generations after the Christian era you meet with in the Irish history king Lughaidh Mac Con Mac Niadh, which is, properly translated, Lughaidh son of Eochan son of Edhach, or anglicised Louis son of John son of Jack, the Edhach being their Niadh or Ned and equivalent to Sethach.

And as to Abel, the brother of Cain, when you say you are able (Norman Hable) you mean that you can, may possibly suggest here the proper interpretation, which however is only a suggestion and nothing more. A literal translation of Gen. IV. i, is: "And Adam knew Chavah, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man, Jahveh." In the margin it is said that Cain is equivalent to gotten, which is strictly correct; but does not say that this was the name of the child that was gotten. Cain is gain, with the hard form of the g initial, and gain is gaethan, the th in the old language being silent and not appearing. So we say I have got or gotten, I get (gaeth) or I gather (gaether), &c., which shows you how Seth is equivalent to Sethan or Sethar.

Enoch (Chanoch) which is another form of Enos, is, in this form, usually explained the Initiated, or, in the passive idea the taught of God, in the sense of a priest, prophet, man of God. In one of the records it is seen he is the son of Cain and in the other he is the great-grandson of Cainan and the great grandfather of

Noah. The fact of his being stated to have lived 365 years, which is the number of days in a solar year and yet that "he was not, for God took him," may perhaps afford a clue to the interpretation of Enoch; for if the name Seth means the sun, and a year, or the course of the sun, so does Enos or Enoch in the old language.

A form for Cainan in the old language is Chna, which certainly is nearer Cain than Cainan, and shows there is no difficulty in identifying these two, so far as the forms of the same in the original are concerned.

To say that the form Irad of the one list here is merely a slight variation of the Iarad in the other would be, to one who understands the original, superfluous; but to say that they were originally intended to represent the same man or idea is to the purpose. The identification, also, by Bunsen, of the Mehujael of the one list with the Mahalael of the other appears in order and correct.

As well as his identification of Metheushael with Methushelach. And the Enoch or Chanoch of the one list with that of the other. As well as again the Lemachs of the two lists.

Hadah (beauty) and Zillah (darkness) are said to be represented in the Phoenician mythology, the one as Dione, the other not named. Josephus says that Lemach had by these two wives 77 children. These two female names are mythological.

Yubal, the son of Hadah, is in Phoenician Esmun, i.e., Samin, the God Hercules. Of Zillah, the dark complexioned, is born Tubal-Cain, the smith or worker in copper. Tubal is the ancestor of such as handle the harp and organ and his brother by the same mother and father is Yabal, who is the ancestor of such as dwell in tents and such as keep cattle.

It is noticeable that the Yah of Yahveh, connected with the birth of Cain, would, when compounded with Abel (Bael), give Yabal or Yubal. And since the Y generally arises from the aspiration of the T, then Tubal-Cain would be equivalent to Yahveh-Abel-Cain or Yahbelseth. The picture appears certainly ideal, the different appellations indicating variations of the same idea; and, of course, the ancients believed as firmly in their deity under those names as the moderns do in God Almighty under the name Jehovah.

The name Lemach some interpret strong man, others, as Ewald, man of violence. It might mean son of the heaven i.e.,El-mac. Naamhah (Grace the graceful) the sister of Tubal Cain, accord

ing to Philo's translation of the Phoenician names belong to the cirele of the Phoenician Esmunidæ.

AS TO THE DATES OF THE PATRIARCHS.

It is, indeed, generally agreed among the theological investigators that the dates assigned in the Elohistic records to individual names from Adam downwards are not to be taken in a literal sense as signifying the ages of individual men. They understand that such an assumption is at variance with all the laws of animal organism and as contrary to common sense as the notion of there being any chronology in the astronomical cycles of hundreds of myriads of years. It is, however, considered equally certain that the dates given are not merely arbitrary inventions and that in dealing with the subject of the Scriptural records the Hebrew text is to be preferred to the Samaritan or Septuagint.

According to the Samaritan version all the patriarchs excepting Enoch died in the year of the flood; but the object of the Septuagint is to throw back wherever possible, the year of the world, because the authentic dates of the Egyptian monuments could not have been unknown to the translators at Alexandria, in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus 270 B. C.

The following theses relating to this subject result from a consideration of it in its extended ideal and, may appear to be, on the whole, well grounded.

1. Among the Aramaeans, Egyptians and Greeks the orders of the Gods are identical, not only as to the fundamental conception, but also in many of the details, both as regards the idea and even the names.

2. In regard to the origin of the world and Divine worship they belong solely to the ideal conceptions.

3. The only account in which the ideal conception has been preserved in its integrity is the Biblical, which also represents the historical element of the character of humanity without mythological

monsters.

4. The consciousness of the unity of God, which we recognize in the Abrahamic conception, gave rise to the ideal element; the historical part arose from primitive Aramaic traditions.

5. Generally not to individual men has the historical element reference, but to epochs and critical changes in the conditions of