Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/19

Rh chaos of ideas into which the East was plunged during the first centuries of our era,—we have still, in three or four forms, writings of Babylonian origin. And first, Berosus, although of the epoch of the Seleucides, was not the less a purely Babylonian writer, and the fragments which have come down to us of his works, although they require to be treated with the greatest caution, are, with the cosmogonies preserved by Damascius and by the author of the, invaluable remains of Chaldæan philosophy. Secondly, a class of writings—very contemptible certainly if we only regard the depth of their ideas,—the writings composed in Greek and Arabic on astrology, magic, oneirocriticism, such as the Cyranides, the works of the false Zoroaster, the books attributed to Seth, and to Noah, the fragments of Paxamus, of Teucer the Babylonian, and of Lasbas the Babylonian,