ument Rawlinson does not consider anything more than f* an, historical representation
of the great and lengthened migrations of the primitive Asiatio race of man.” More
recently we learn from Layard how — “ Asshur, the king of the circle of the great
gods,” heads the list of the thirteen great gods of Assyria, at Nimroud. At Babylon
however, the god Marduk is termed “ the great lord,” “ lord of lords,” “ elder of the
gods,” &c. ; and Ashur no longer appears, being the god of upland Assyria, and not
of the Babylonian plains.
The cuneiform documents upon which ASAUR figures as a native mythological personage
approach in antiquity the era of Moses. The hieroglyphical records in which
A-su-nt occurs as the Egyptian name of Assyria, surpass, by two hundred years, the
age of the Hebrew lawgiver, because Birch discovers it upon inscriptions of the time
of Amunoph Hliraprs, p. 133, fig. 32]. Space now prevents the demonstration that,
among its various symbolical meanings, A-STJR signifies also “ the-BullAand-,” but the
writer (G. R. G.) will publish the reasons elsewhere. In the interim, to the author of
Xth Genesis, ASAUR meant the country by us called Assyria — nothing more nor l e s s .®
48. “J2 0 £ nN — ABPAKSD — ‘ A rphaxad.’
“ Arphaxad (ARPAaKSaD; Sept. ’Ap0a?<il), the son of Shem, and father of Salah;
bom one year after the Deluge, and died B. c. 1904, aged 438 years (Gen. xi. 12, &c).”
Reguiescat in pace /
Such is the terse obituary notice,.—unaccompanied by the customary poetical regrets
or general invitation to attend the funeral,—a divinity student encounters when, seeking
for instruction about the Savior’s genealogy, he opens Kitto’s cyclopaedia or Taylor’s
Calmet (the best English biblical dictionaries) at the name Arphaxad : and this
is all. A noble cenotaph ! We close those devout, not to say laborious, compendia,
and turn to Volney’s Recherches Nouvelles.
“ A fifth people of Sent is Araf-Kashd, represented in the canton Arra-Padhitis of
Ptolemy, which is a mountainous country, at the south of the Lake of Tan, whence
stream forth the Tigris and the Lycus or great Zab. This name signifies boundary of
the Ohaldoean, and seems to indicate that the Chaldæans, before Ninus, had extended
themselves even thither. This Abaph-Kashd, according to Josephus, was father of
the Chaldæans ; according to the Hebrew, he produced Shebah, whose trace, as city,
and country, is found in the Salacha of Ptolemy. Shebah produced Ebeb, father of
all the peoples on the other side of the Euphrates ; but if we find him on this side, relatively
to Judæa, we have the right to say that this antique tradition comes from Chal-
dæa.” Our analyses of Xth Genesis entirely corroborate Tolney’s deductions of its
Chaldaie derivation; and justify Lenormant’s orthodox eulogies of him as “ un des
hommes les plus pénétrants de ce siècle.” From the latter we take the following note_
“ Josephus had made, before Michæbis, of Arphaxad, the father of the Casdim or
Chaldæans. M. Bohlen explains Arrapachitis by the Sanscrit : Aryapakschatà, the
country bordering upon Aria. This etymology is not unworthy of attention.”
There is little to be added to Volney’s definition; and that little confirms him.
ARPA-KaSD — after dividing into two words that which in the Hebrew ancient Text
(Synagogue rolls) runs letter after letter, “ continuâ serie,” along the whole line —
i yields us, as Michaelis first suggested, ARFA, the Arabic for boundary, and KASD,
Ohaldoean:. The etymology is in unison with Aramæan origines ; and Arphaxad was
the brother of Aram: while Bochart’s identification of it With the province of Arrapachitis
of Ptolemy’s geography also stands ; but perhaps not with “ nam quod Josephus
et alii volunt Chaldæos olim ab eô dictes Arphazadoeos merum somnium est.”
It is strange how Oriental tradition clings to the vicinities of Ararat as the mountainous
birthplace of Chaldaie races. There we find the Neden (Eden) of Genesis lid,
and “ the house of Eden ” extant in the time of the prophet Amos (i. 6) ; while another
writer tells us how “ Haran Canne, and Neden, have made traffic with what
came from Seba, and Assyria learned thy traffic” (Ezek. xxvii. 23).
There, too, was the Haiasdan of the Armenians; and there the Hadeneche which
Zoroaster ennobled by the title of the “ pure Iran” because his birthplace was at
Ourmi, on the border of Lake Ourmiah. “ There,” continues Dubois, “ is the antique
native-land of Arpacsad and of the Hebrews: and their patriarch Abraham, like Zoroaster,.
was born at Our, on the shores of Lake Ourmiah, in Chaldgea. There touches
also Iran, Arfian, the land of Persian mythes.” In which connection let us likewise
add, that the river Akhourtan, whose sources lie on the same chain, still bears the
name of A R P A -T c h a i . But we suggest a melioration. *
A r p h a k a s d , as a country in Xth Genesis, is the parental source, through the province
of Salacha, of Ebeb, the yohderer; and from the latter, according to the other document
(Gen. xi. 13-26), sprang A b r a h a m , progenitor of the Abrdhamidce; born probably
at Our Kasdim, “' Ur of the Chaldees,” whence they issued ^to go to the land
of Kan&an.” It is true that Mr. Loftus considers the enormous ruins of Werka to be
the real “ Ur of the Chaldees,” now traditionally called “ the birthplace of Abraham
nor would the establishment of this fact result in any further alteration of our view
than by proving (what is very likely) that ARPAa-KaSD was a different place from
AUR-KaSDIM. The name “ Chaldsean” is also ancient enough, having been found in
cuneiform on the monuments of Nineveh.
Be all this as it may, there still remains one “ Ur of the Chaldees,” AUR-KSDIM
in the text, which is unquestionably, as shown by Ritter and by Ainsworth, the present
city and district of Urhoi, now Orfa, or URPAA (called, in Greco-Roman times,
Chaldceopolis, Antiochia, Callirhoe, and Edessa), in Didrbeklr. Allowing very common
mutations of vowels, we behold in Urfa, or ARP A«, ARPAa-KaSD, “ Orfa of the
Chaldcean,” the absolute solution of A r p h a x a d , no less than the earliest geographical
source of the Abrahamidce.
Thus, at every step, the chorographic exactitude of Xth Genesis is vindicated; and
ARPAaKaSD, no more a fabulous human being, regains its legitimate heritage among
the countries of the earth. To the “ late Jfr.” A r p h a x a d , “ aged 438 years,” we
repeat our valedictory, “ requiescat in pace! ” 633
49. T iS — L IE D — ‘ L u d , ’ *
The high road from Nineveh, in the land of ASUR, Assyria, conducts a. traveller
towards Asia Minor, through ARFA-KASD, Chaldcean- Orfa, into L ydia; — a name
which, in its Greek spelling o f AvSia, faithfully transcribes the Hebrew LUD-ia.
This country derives its name, according to traditions collected by a native of Asia
Minor, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, from Lydus, son of Atys; whose crown passed
into the keeping of Hercules. This legend indicates the ante-historical ground we
tread upon; and probably the intrusion of Hellenic Hieraclidce upon an aboriginal
Lydian population, affiliated with the Shemites. The recent explorations of Fellows
and the Lycian monuments now rescued from perdition, establish, in the most convincing
manner, the transitions of art in all its symbolism, through Asia Minor, from
Assyria to Greece; and the my the of the Assyrian Hercules serves as a faithful thread
through the mazes of this labyrinth: which mythe, Grote observes, exhibits but the
“ tendency to universal p e r sonificationbeing, merely “ MvOos, Saga-^&n. universal
manifestation of the human mind.”
But, from the premises, one deduction is solid, viz.: that Herodotus, than whom in
Lydian questions there is no higher authority, makes Hercules succeed Lydus— the
personified land of Lydia. Now, inasmuch as the mythe of Hercules antedates all chronology,
it follows that Herodotus, who says that Lydus preceded the Hieraclidce, looked
upon the autocthonous name and traditions of Lydia as still more remote from his own
day; b . o. 484-430. To us, therefore, the Halicamassian’s testimony, upon the ante-
historical affaip of his native Asia Minor, would ipso facto outweigh any notices of
68