the whole army of the archduke Leopold Jacob conquered only a very small counof Austria, consisting of twenty thousand try, which they have lost; whereas the men. They destroyed the cavalry, by descendants of Ismael conquered part of throwing down stones from a high rock: Asia, of Europe, and of Africa, establishand gave time to fourteen hundred Hel-ed an empire more extensive than that of vetians to come up and finish the defeat the Romans, and drove the Jews from of the army. This achievement at Mor- their caverns, which they called The Land gat is more brilliant than that of Thermo- of Promise. pylæ, inasmuch as it is a finer thing to conquer than to be conquered. The Greeks amounted to ten thousand, well armed; and it was impossible that, in a mountainous country, they could have to encounter more than a hundred thousand Persians at once; it is more than probable that there were not thirty thousand Persians engaged. But here fourteen hun-hardly likely that this son of a potter dred Swiss defeat an army of twenty should have passed through impracticable thousand men. The diminished propor- { desarts, and founded the city of Mecca, tion of the less to the greater number, at the distance of four hundred leagues, also increases the proportion of glory.-under a tropical sun. If he was a con

But, how far has Abraham led us?

These digressions amuse him who makes and sometimes him who reads them. Besides, every one is delighted to see a great army beaten by a little one.

SECTION II.

Abraham is one of those names which were fan,ous in Asia Manor and Arabia, as Thaut was among the Egyptians, the first Zoroaster in Persia, Hercules in Greece, Orpheus in Thrace, Odin among the northern nations, and so many others, known more by their fame than by any authentic history. I speak here of profane history only; as for that of the Jews, our masters and our enemies, whom we at once detest and believe, their history having evidently been written by the Holy Ghost, we feel towards it as we ought to feel. We have to do here only with the Arabs. They boast of having descended from Abraham through Ismaël, believing that this patriarch built Mecca and died there. The fact is, that the race of Ismaël has been infinitely more favoured by God than that of Jacob. Both races, it is true, have produced robbers; but the Arabian robbers have been prodigiously superior to the Jewish ones; the descendants of

Judging of things only by the examples to be found in our modern histories, it would be difficult to believe that Abraham had been the father of two nations so widely different. We are told that he was born in Chaldea, and that he was the son of a poor potter, who earned his bread by making little earthen idols. It is

queror, he doubtless cast his eyes on the fine country of Assyria. If he was no more than a poor man, he did not found kingdoms abroad.

The Book of Genesis relates that he was seventy-five years old when he went out of the land of Haran after the death of his father Terah the potter; but the same book also tells us, that Terah, having begotten Abraham at the age of seventy years, lived to that of two hundred and five; and afterwards, that Abraham went out of Haran; which seems to signify, that it was after the death of his father.

Either the author did not know how to dispose his narration, or it is clear from the Book of Genesis itself, that Abraham was one hundred and thirty-five years old when he quitted Mesopotamia. He went from a country which is called idolatrous, to another idolatrous country named Sichem, in Palestine. Why did he quit the fruitful banks of the Euphrates, for a spot so remote, so barren, and so stony as Sichem? It was not a place of trade, and was distant a hundred leagues from Chaldea, and deserts lay between. But God chose that Abraham should go this journey; he chose to show him the land which his descendants were to occupy

several ages after him. It is with diffi- mentators have written a prodigious numculty that the human understanding com- ber of volumes to justify Abraham's conprebends the reasons for such a journey. duct, and to explain away the errors in Scarcely had he arrived in the little chronology. To these commentaries we mountainous country of Sichem, when must refer the reader; they are all comfamine compelled him to quit it. He posed by men of nice and acute percepwent into Egypt with his wife Sarah, totions, excellent metaphysicians, and by no means pedants.

seek a subsistence. The distance from Sichem to Memphis is two hundred leagues. Is it natural that a man should go so far to ask for corn in a country, the language of which he did not under-sert, that he was the same legislator whom stand? Truly these were strange journies, the Greeks called Zoroaster. Others say undertaken at the age of nearly a hundred that he was the Brama of the Indians; and forty years! which is not demonstrated. But it apHe brought with him to Memphis his{pears very reasonable to many, that this wife Sarah, who was extremely young, Abraham was a Chaldean or a Persian and almost an infant when compared from whom the Jews afterwards boasted with himself; for she was only sixty-five. of having descended, as the Franks did As she was very handsome, he resolved of their descent from Hector, and the to turn her beauty to account. "Say, I Britons from Tubal. It cannot be denied pray thee, that thou art my sister, that it that the Jewish nation were a very modern may be well with me for thy sake." He horde; that they did not establish themshould rather have said to her, "Say, I selves on the borders of Phoenicia until a pray thee, that thou art my daughter." very late period; that they were surroundThe king fell in love with the younged by ancient states, whose language they Sarah, and gave the pretended brother adopted, receiving from them even the abundance of sheep, oxen, he-asses, she- name of Israel, which is Chaldean, from asses, camels, men-servants and inaid- the testimony of the Jew Flavius Josephus servants; which proves that Egypt was himself. We know that they took the then a powerful, and well-regulated, and names of the Angels from the Babylonians, consequently an ancient kingdom, and and that they called God by the names of that those were magnificently rewarded Eloi or Eloa, Adonai, Jehovah or Hiao, who came and offered their sisters to the after the Phoenicians. It is probable that kings of Memphis. The youthful Sarah they knew the name of Abraham or Ibrawas ninety years old when God promised him only through the Babylonians; for her that, in the course of a year, she the ancient religion of all the countries should have a child by Abraham, who from the Euphrates to the Oxus was was then a hundred and sixty.

For the rest, this name of Bram, or Abram, was famous in Judea and in Persia. Several of the learned even as

Abraham, who was fond of travelling, went into the horrible desert of Kadesh with his pregnant wife, ever young and ever pretty. A king of this desart was, of course, captivated by Sarah, as the king of Egypt had been. The father of the faithful told the same lie as in Egypt, making his wife pass for his sister; which brought him more sheep, oxen, men-serPants, and maid-servants. It might be said that this Abraham became rich prindipally by the means of his wife. Com

I called Kish Ibrahim or Milat Ibrahim. This is confirmed by all the researches made on the spot by the learned Hyde.

The Jews, then, treat their history and ancient fable as their clothes-men treat their old coats-they turn them and sell them for new at as high a price as possible. It is a singular instance of human stupidity, that we have so long considered the Jews as a nation which taught all others, while their historian Josephus himself confesses the contrary.

It is difficult to penetrate the shades of

antiquity; but it is evident that all the therefore less certain that Abraham ex kingdoms of Asia were in a very flourish-isted. The Jews distinguished book ing state before the wandering horde of written by inspired men, from books com Arabs, called Jews, had a small spot of posed by particular inspiration. How earth which they called their own,—when { indeed, can it be believed that God dic they had neither a town, nor laws, nor tated false dates? even a fixed religion. When, therefore, we see an ancient rite or an ancient opinion established in Egypt or Asia, and also amongst the Jews, it is very natural to suppose that this small, newly-formed, ignorant, stupid people, copied, as well as they were able, the ancient, flourishing, and industrious nation.

It is on this principle that we must judge of Judea, Biscay, Cornwall, &c. Most certainly triumphant' Rome did not in any thing imitate Biscay or Cornwall; and he must be either very ignorant or a great knave, who would say that the Jews taught anything to the Greeks.

SECTION III.

Philo the Jew of Suidas, relates tha Terah, the father or grand-father of Abra ham, who dwelt at Ur in Chaldea, was poor man who gained a livelihood by making little idols, and that he was him self an idolater. If so, that ancient re ligion of the Sabeans, who had no idols but worshipped the heavens, had no then, perhaps, been established in Chal { dea; or, if it prevailed in one part of the country, it is very probable that idolatry was predominant in the rest. It seems that in those times each little horde hac its religion, as each family had its own peculiar customs; all were tolerated, and all were peaceably confounded. Laban the father-in-law of Jacob, had idols Each clan was perfectly willing that the neighbouring clan should have its gods {and contented itself with believing that its own were the mightiest.

{

It must not be thought that Abraham was known only to the Jews: on the contrary, he is renowned throughout Asia. This name, which signifies father of a people in more Oriental languages than The Scripture says that the God of the one, was given to some inhabitant of Jews, who intended to give them the land Chaldea, from whom several nations have of Canaan, commanded Abraham to leave boasted of descending. The pains which the fertile country of Chaldea, and go the Arabs and the Jews took to establish towards Palestine, promising him that in their descent from this patriarch, render it his seed all the nations of the earth should impossible for even the greatest Pyrrho-be blessed. It is for theologians to exneans to doubt of there having been an plain, by allegory and mystical sense, how all the nations of the earth were to be blessed in a seed from which they did not descend, since this much-to-be-venerated mystical sense cannot be made the object of a research purely critical. A short time after these promises, Abraham's family was afflicted by famine, and went into Egypt for corn. It is singular that the Hebrews never went into Egypt, but when pressed by hunger; for Jacob afterwards sent his children on the same

Abraham.

The Hebrew Scriptures make him the son of Terah, while the Arabs say that Terah was his grand-father, and Azar his father, in which they have been followed by several Christians. The interpreters are of forty-two different opinions with respect to the year in which Abraham was brought into the world, and I shall not hazard a forty-third. It also appears, by the dates, that Abraham lived sixty years longer than the text allows him; but mis-errand. takes in chronology do not destroy the truth of a fact. Supposing even that the book which speaks of Abraham had not been so sacred as was the law, it is not

Abraham, who was then very old, went this journey with his wife Sarah, aged sixty-five: she was very handsome, and Abraham feared that the Egyptians,

mitten by her charms, would kill him in mans, who, while they obeyed their priorder to enjoy her transcendent beauties : mitive laws, were not obliged to believe he proposed to her that she should pass in the miracles of the sieve filled with for his sister, &c. Human nature must water, the ship drawn to the shore by a at that time have possessed a vigour which vestal's girdle, the stone cut with a razor, time and luxury have since very much and so forth. Therefore the historian weakened. This was the opinion of all Josephus, though strongly attached to his the ancients; it has even been asserted form of worship, leaves his readers at that Helen was seventy when she was liberty to believe just so much as they carried off by Paris. That which Abra-choose of the ancient prodigies which he ham had foreseen came to pass: the Egyptian youth found his wife charming, notwithstanding her sixty-five years; the king himself fell in love with her, and placed her in his seraglio, though, probably, he had younger females there; but the Lord plagued the king and his seraglio with very great sores. The text does not tell us how the king came to know that this dangerous beauty was Abraham's wife; but it seems that he did come to know it, and restored her.

relates. For the same reason the Sadducees were permitted not to believe in the Angels, although the Angels are so often spoken of in the Old Testament; but these same Sadducees were not allowed to neglect the prescribed feasts, fasts, and ceremonies. This part of Abraham's history (the journies into Egypt and Phœnicia) proves that great kingdoms were already established, while the Jewish nation existed in a single family; that there already were laws, since without Sarah's beauty must have been unalter-them a great kingdom cannot exist; and able; for twenty-five years afterwards, consequently that the law of Moses, which when she was ninety years old, pregnant, was posterior, was not the first law. It is and travelling with her husband through not necessary for a law to be divine, that the dominions of a king of Phoenicia it should be the most ancient of all. God named Abimelech, Abraham, who had is undoubtedly the master of time. It not yet corrected himself, made her a would, it is true, appear more conformsecond time pass for his sister. The able to the faint light of reason, that God, Phenician king was as sensible to her having to give a law, should have given it attractions as the king of Egypt had been; at the first to all mankind; but if it be

but God appeared to this Abimelech in a proved that he proceeds in a different dream, and threatened him with death if way, it is not for us to question him. be touched his new mistress. It must be

confessed that Sarab's conduct was as subject to great difficulties. God, who

The remainder of Abraham's history is

extraordinary charms.

as the lasting nature of her

frequently appeared to and made several treaties with him, one day sent three

The singularity of these adventures was angels to him in the valley of Mamre. why the Jews had The patriarch gave them bread, veal,

probably the reason

not the same sort of faith in their his- butter, and milk, to eat. The three There was not a single iota of their law for Sarah, who had baked the bread. One in which they did not believe; but the of the angels, whom the text calls the tories which they had in their Leviticus. spirits dined, and after dinner they sent historical part of their Scriptures did not { Lord, the Eternal, promised Sarah that, demand the same respect. Their con- in the course of a year, she should have their ancient books may a son. Sarah, who was then ninety-four,

duct in regard to

be compared to that of the English, who while her husband was nearly a hundred, received the laws of St. Edward without laughed at the promise,-a proof that absolutely believing that St. Edward Sarah confessed her decrepitude,-a proof

cured the scrofula ;

or to that of the Ro- that, according

to the Scripture itself,

powerful, and most extensive in the world.

The Mussulmans have a great reverence for Abraham, whom they call Ibrahim. Those who believe him to have been buried at Hebron, make a pilgrim

his tomb is at Mecca, go and pay their homage to him there.

human nature was not then very different from what it is now. Nevertheless, the following year, as we have already seen, this aged woman, after becoming pregnant, captivated King Abimelech. Certes, to consider these stories as natural, we must either have a species of under-age thither; while those who think that standing quite different from that which we have at present, or regard every trait in the life of Abraham as a miracle, or believe that it is only an allegory; but whichever way we turn, we cannot escape embarrassment. For instance, what are we to make of God's promise to Abraham that he would give to him and his pos-tures have been attributed; but it appears terity all the land of Canaan, which no Chaldean ever possessed? This is one of the difficulties which it is impossible to solve.

It seems astonishing that God, after causing Isaac to be born of a centenary father and a woman of ninety-five, should afterwards have ordered that father to murder the son whom he had given him contrary to every expectation. This strange order from God seems to show that, at the time when this history was written, the sacrifice of human victims was customary amongst the Jews, as it afterwards became in other nations, as witness the vow of Jephtha. But it may be said, that the obedience of Abraham, who was ready to sacrifice his son to the God who had given him, is an allegory of the resignation which man owes to the orders of the Supreme Being.

Some of the ancient Persians believed that Abraham was the same with Zoroaster. It has been with him as with most of the founders of the Eastern nations, to whom various names and various adven

by the Scripture text, that he was one of those wandering Arabs who had no fixed habitation. We see him born at Ur in Chaldea, going first to Haran, then into Palestine, then into Egypt, then into Phoenicia, and lastly forced to buy a grave at Hebron.

One of the most remarkable circumstances of his life was, that at the age of ninety, before he had begotten Isaac, he caused himself, his son Ishmael, and all his servants, to be circumcised. It seems that he had adopted this idea amongst the Egyptians. It is difficult to determine the origin of such an operation; but it appears most likely that it was performed in order to prevent the abuses of puberty. But why should a man undergo this operation at the age of a hundred?

On the other hand it is asserted, that only the priests were anciently distinThere is one remark which it is parti-guished in Egypt by this custom. It was cularly important to make on the history of this Patriarch regarded as the father of the Jews and the Arabs. His principal children were Isaac, born of his wife by a miraculous favour of Providence, and Ishmael, born of his servant. It was in Isaac that the race of the Patriarch was blessed; yet Isaac was father only of an unfortunate and contemptible nation, who were for a long period slaves, and have for a still longer been dispersed. Ishmael, on the contrary, was the father of the Arabs, who, in course of time, established the empire of the Caliphs, one of the most

an usage of great antiquity in Africa and part of Asia, for the most holy personages to present their virile member to be kissed by the women whom they met. The organs of generation were looked upon as something noble and sacred--as a symbol of divine power: it was customary to swear by them; and, when taking an oath to another person, to lay the hand on his testicles. It was perhaps from this an cient custom that they afterwards received their name, which signifies witnesses, because they were thus made a testimony and a pledge. When Abraham sent his

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