tomb of Heber (ÉBR), but. the Kabr Sdleh (that is to say, the tomb of the Father of
Houd, according to Arab .notions) is the point where I place the birth of Bacchus; in
other words, the point of departure for those civilizing conquests of which the Arabs
have preserved the remembrance. These conquests are not the act of a single man
or if one might so express oneself, ‘ of a single Bacchus.’ Dhou-Ons or Dhou-Hoús
(in the oblique case, Dhi-Ons or Hhi-Noits), Dhou ’I Kameyn (the man with the two
horns), Afrikis (the god-father of Africa); Lokman, &c., &c., are to me so many personifications
of Bacchus; and if you must absolutely have a religious idea pre-existent
to Arab kings, a Bacchus outside of Yemenite dynasties, I should venture to tell
you to seek for Bacchus in the tomb Sctloh (SLKA) [Gen. x. 24] under the Djdbal-
Noús. Bacchus then will be the father of the patriarch Héber (EBR), of the Abra-
hamidce and of the Joktanidce.
“ Will you mount up still higher ? Alóvwos is (Hebraicé) DU-ANOSA, Dhou-finosh
(the god of the vulgar), or lastly, Enos himself, Enos, grandson of Adam.
“ Agréez, monsieur, &c.,
“ F. Fkesnel.”
“ A M. Mohl, Journal Asiatique, Paris.”
Our researches do not require our accompanying M. Mohl into antediluvian regions.
We are satisfied when shown that EBR in Xth Genesis is the natural appellation of a
tribe; better known to modern science as source of the Abrahamidce&i
“ And unto EBR were born two sons.”
. — P L G - — | P e l eo . ’
“ And the name of one (was) PLG,” explains the author of Xth Genesis, “ because
in his day the earth was d i v i d e d literally, “ PLGei?,” split. In modern Arabic even,
the identical word FLG means a “ split,” and “ to s p l i tw h i c h again induces a smile
at mystifications concerning a “ sacred tongue,every third word of which exists in the
Arabic dárig, vernacular: every second in the Hahwee, or Koranic idiom; every one,
in some form or other, by easily recognizable changes of consonant or vowel, in the
Qamoos — the “ Ocean” lexicon of Arabian literature. Any well-eduoated Arab, we
fear not to maintain, who could first peruse in some European tongue a few philosophical
works on Hebrew literature and comparative philology, would master the 5642.
words counted (by Leusdén) in this exaggerated Kananitish language, after devoting one
day to its alphabet, in about a week. This doctrine no Shemitish Orientalist (no.
Lanci, no De Saulcy, no Quatrembre, no Fresnel, no Rawlinson), will deny. “We
have remarked in it,” comments Be Saulcy upon the Toison d’Or, a new Phoenician
work by the Abbé Bourgade, “ a passage the justness of which we ought to applaud;
because, in order to write it, one must not have been scared by the scientific' anathemas
of certain too-exclusive savants. Here is this passage — It is therefore rational
to make use of Hebrew, and of the other Aramaean idioms to explain the Punic: one
may also use Arabic, another ramification of the Semitic family; sometimes even it is
indispensable to have recourse to this language, almost all Hebrew words being found
within Arabic, either without modification, or with very slight modifications, sometimes
in the form, at others in the sens^, but not vice-versd; the language of the Koran
being incontestably richer than that of the Bible.’ ” ' '
On the historical monstrosities erected upon this verse of Scripture, it is not for us
to dwell.' Pelagos, the Pelasgi, and Pelargos; the “ Sea,” the ‘‘ fossil people” as Niebuhr
beautifully calls them, or the “ Stork,” do not concern an alien Semitic bisyllable,
whose simplest essence is Anglic^ a “ split.” We are loath to reject the Bochartian
assimilation of Phalga, a town on the Euphrates, near Charrce; which town, some say,'
is Haran, built by Abraham’s brother, after his own death at CJialdcean- Orfa: just in
the same way that Moses posthumously describes his own ever-unknown burial-place,
his wake of thirty days, &c. (Deut. xxxiy. 5-12): but we venture to submit the
following doubts:-—
1st. If by PLG, or PALG, the editor of Xth Genesis meant what, in every instance
but the mythological NMRD, is herein proved to have been a country, a people, or a
city, then the parenthetical passage, “ because in his day the earth was split,” may be
a gloss by some later hand,—rationally suggested through paronomasia of the triliteral
PLG “ split,” combined with impressions formed upon other documents by such interpolator
— the whole having been subsequently recast by the Esdraie school from which
we inherit (every possible chance of intervening error and perversion, inclusive) this
verse of Xth Genesis.
2nd. If it were shown that a gloss must be as unlikely as it is dangerous to the claims
of plenary inspiration; then, before we can perceive a necessity for supposing that the
chorographer of Xth Genesis here alludes to the “ Dispersion of mankind,” we would
inquire whether the words “ (was) split the earth ” do not refer to some local and terrestrial
catastrophe—an earthquake, for instance—that, occurring simultaneously, may
have become traditionally coupled with a PLGian migration. A similar catastrophe,
introduced into Manetho’s text in a similar manner, oocurred under Bochus, 1st King
of the second Egyptian dynasty, when “ a huge chasm ” was made at Bubastis.
3rd, and lastly—If none of the above possibilities be satisfactory, then, falling back
upon the indubitable orthodoxy of the Parisian Professor of Egyptian Archeology, we
should perceive in the words “ because in his day the earth (was) split," merely a partition
of territory between the PLGiim and the Joktunide affiliations of EBB, the
“ yonderer.”—“ Of the two sons of this Patriarch, the first, Phaleg (holds Lenormant),
indicating that part of the nation that continued to wander in Upper Mesopotamia;
lectan, the second, shows us on the contrary the other portion of the same people which
first set itself on a march towards the south.” The verb “ divide ”■ occurs three times
in the English version of Xth Genesis (5, 25, 32). It need scarcely be mentioned that,
in the Hebrew,, the play upon the word PLG “ to split” presents itself only in verse
25. The other two passages use a distinct verb, NPhRDU, “ they dispersed.”
“ Hypotheses non fingo” — and as everything beyond the name of PLG, “ split,”
is an hypothesis, we leave hagiography to “ split hairs ” on the question; merely
insisting here that PLG has no relation whatever to a “ Dispersion of mankind.” 642
58, JEOp’ — ffiTN — ‘ Joktan.’
The compiler of Xth Genesis closed the ancestral line of the A brahamidce, abruptly,
with PeLeG, a “ split.” Yet to the pedigree of IKTN he devotes particular attention;
for, besides cataloguing thirteen of the latter’s descendants, he adds, “ all these are
sons of IKTN ” : and then fixes their dwelling-places.
Why this difference ? Were his partialities Arabian? Did he know all about Arab
migrations, and nothing of those of the Abrahamidce ? Had the writer been a “ He-
■ brew of the Hebrews,” he would scarcely have blocked the “ royal line of David ” at
PLG, “ a split” ; and thereby left to another hand, in another document (Gen. xi.
18-26), at a later dge, the task of linking Abraham’s genealogy to his own ethnic map
of nations and places. Here again, a foreigner to Judaism and Jews, our conjeotural
Chaldtcan chorographer, “ laisse percer le bout d’oreille,” Such alien would not
have greatly concerned himself with the Abrahamidce, a petty tribe that had wandered
off to Kanaan; and the writer of Xth Genesis did not: such alien would have taken
much interest in the proceedings of the ever restless Joktanidce, always harrying the
Mesopotamian frontier; and the writer of Xth Genesis did.
IoKTaN, Joktan, Yoktan, or correctly Qahtin, the Beni-Kahtcm—most ancient and
renowned of all Semitish intruders upon the domains of Cushite-ffimydr — need no
panegyrist. They have ground their lance-heads upon every pebble “ from Havilah to
Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest towards Assyria.” Their woollen tents are
pitched from “ Sephar, a mount of the east,” at the south-western extremity of Arabia,
even unto the declivities of Persian Uplands. Their Nedjdee horses still chase the wild
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