Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/108

92 in the first centuries of our era. The Jews displayed a literary activity which, beyond doubt, did not remain shut up in the bosom of their communities. The Gnostic sects, Pérates, Elchasaïtes, etc., developed themselves with a boldness and liberty which mark at least an awakened intellect. The wrestling of the Syrian Christians—St. Ephraim, the Syrian, for instance—against the Chaldæans, presumes that Christianity found there the most formidable resistance which it had yet encountered. Finally, I do not doubt that an attentive analysis of Greek manuscripts on astrology, on genethliacs, etc., made with a preoccupation of ideas awakened by the labours of Dr. Chwolson, may show this result, that our