Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/67

Rh way into Babylon. The same influence is met with in a more indirect, but not less unmistakeable form, in other passages of “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture.” I have not the least doubt, in fact, that most of the personages, adduced as ancient sages of Babylon, and whose names are strikingly like those of the Hebrew patriarchs, are those very patriarchs themselves. Dr. Chwolson denies it; but his efforts appear to me quite inadequate to disprove this identity, which has so forcibly struck both M. Quatremère and Prof. Ewald. Let me endeavour to prove that Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, are to be found in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture,” with legends analogous to those which they have in the apocryphal writings of Jews and Christians, and subsequently in those of the Mussulmans.

One of the ancient sages who fills the