Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/597

Rh " or Azab) shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here * ." No other particulars, however, are mentioned about her in scripture; and it is not probable our Saviour would say she came from the uttermost parts of the earth, if she had been an Arab, and had near 50° of the Continent behind her. The gold, the myrrh, cassia, and frankincense, were all the produce of her own country; and the many reasons Pineda † gives to shew she was an Arab, more than convince me that she was an Ethiopian or Cushite shepherd.

objection to her being an Arab, is, that the Sabean Arabs, or Homerites, the people that lived opposite to Azab on the Arabian shore, had kings instead of queens, which latter the Shepherds had, and still have. Moreover, the kings of the Homerites were never seen abroad, and were stoned to death if they appeared in public; subjects of this stamp would not very readily suffer their queen to go to Jerusalem, even supposing they had a queen, which they had not.

she was a Jewess or a Pagan is uncertain; Sabaism was the religion of all the East. It was the constant attendant and stumbling-block of the Jews ; but considering the multitude of that people then trading from Jerusalem, and the long time it continued, it is not improbable she was

VOL. I.


 * Matth. chap. xii. ver. 42. Luke xi. 31.

† Pin. de reb. Solomon, lib. iv. cap. 14th. — Josephus thinks she was an Ethiopian, so do Origen, Augustin, and St Anselmo.