The Hebraic Tongue Restored Fabre d' Olivet t w **-r nr a r$ This Edition of " The Hebrew Tongue Restored'' is printed from type and is Limited to 500 copies, By Fabre d'Oliuet Done in English by Mayan Louise Redfield Hermeneutic Interpretation of the Origin of the Social State of Man and of the Destiny of the Adamic Race The Golden Verses of Pythagoras The Hebraic Tongue Restored and the True Meaning of the Hebrew Words Re-estab- lished and Proved by their Radical Analysis The Hebraic Tongue Restored And the True Meaning of the Hebrew Words Re-established and Proved by their Radical Analysis By Fabre d'Olivet Done into English by Nayan Louise Redfield rnrp 'He who can rightly pronounce it. causeth heaven and earth to tremble, for it la the NAME which rueheth through the universe.' G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London Cbe Knickerbocker press 1921 COPYRIGHT 1921 BY NAYXN LOUISE REDFIELD SET UP BY THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS, NEW YORK Printed in the United States of America To THE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE SEVEN-TONGUED-FLAME WHO HAVE EVER BEEN THE PATH-FlNDERS AND LIGHTS ON THE WAY-OF-KNOWING AND BEING, I OFFER AT THE DAWN-OF-THE-NEW-DAY THIS VOLUME Sfacg] Annex j fj TO THE READER I would direct attention to the English word-for-word translation given in the Literal Version of the Cosmogony of Moses. This translation is d'Olivet's, and in the foot- notes which accompany it I have retained his selection of words some of which are now obsolete. In the "Correct Translation" at the close of the volume I have, however, set aside some of the quaint words making choice of more modern ones. N. L. R. TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD. THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED is a strong appeal to those who, realizing that the time of philosophy is past and the time of religion at hand, are seeking for those higher truths the spreading knowledge of which has already altered the complexion of the world and signalled the approaching end of materialism. In this prodigious work of Fabre d'Olivet, which first appeared in 1815, he goes back to the origin of speech and rebuilds upon a basis of truly colossal learning the edifice of primitive and hieroglyphic Hebrew, bringing back the Hebraic tongue to its constitutive principles by deriving it wholly from the Sign, which he considers the symbolic and living image of the generative ideas of language. He gives a neoteric translation of the first ten chapters of the SEPHER OF MOSES (Genesis) in which he supports each with a scientific, historic and grammatical commentary to bring out the three meanings: literal, figurative and hieroglyphic, corresponding to the natural, psychic and divine worlds. He asserts plainly and fearlessly that the Genesis of Moses was symbolically expressed and ought not to be taken in a purely literal sense. Saint Augustine recognized this, and Origen avers that "if one takes the history of the creation in the literal sense, it is absurd and contradictory." Fabre d'Olivet claims that the Hebrew contained in Genesis is the pure idiom of the ancient Egyptians, and considering that nearly six centuries before Jesus Christ, the Hebrews having become Jews no longer spoke nor understood their original tongue, he denies the value of the Hebrew as it is understood today, and has undertaken to restore this tongue lost for twenty-five centuries. The truth ix of this opinion does not appear doubtful, since the Hebrews according to Genesis itself remained some four hundred years in Egypt. This idiom, therefdre, having become separated from a tongue which had attained its highest perfection and was composed entirely of universal, intel- lectual, abstract expressions, would naturally fall from degeneracy to degeneracy, from restriction to restriction, to its most material elements; all that was spirit would become substance; all that was intellectual would become sentient ; all that was universal, particular. According to the Essenian tradition, every word in this Scphcr of Moses contains three meanings the positive or simple, the comparative or figurative, the superlative or hieratic. When one has penetrated to this last mean- ing, all things are disclosed through a radiant illumina- tion and the soul of that one attains to heights which those bound to the narrow limits of the positive meaning and satisfied with the letter which killeth, never know. The learned Maimonides says "Employ you reason, and you will be able to discern what is said allegorical- ly, figuratively and hyperbolically, and what is meant literallv." HARTFORD, CONN. October, IQI& NAYAN LOUISE KEDFIELD NOTE. It may be noted by the careful student that the Syriac characters in this volume are in some instances not exactly correct. Unfor- tunately, the impossibility of securing better types necessitated the use of these unsatisfactory forms. For this the author and the pub- lishers ask the indulgence of the reader. THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED AND THE TRUE MEANING OF THE HEBREW WORDS RE-ESTABLISHED AND PROVED BY THEIR RADICAL ANALYSIS. In this work is found: 1st INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION upon the Origin of Speech, the study of the tongues which can lead to this origin and the purpose that the Author has in view; 2nd. HEBRAIC GRAMMAR founded upon new prin- ciples, and made useful for the study of tongues in general ; 3rd. SERIES OF HEBRAIC ROOTS considered under new relations, and destined to facilitate the understanding of language, and that of etymological science ; 4th. PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE; 5th. Translation into English of the first ten chapters of the Sepher, containing the COSMOGONY OF MOSES This translation, destined to serve as proof of the principles laid down in the Grammar and in the Dictionary, is preceded by a LITERAL VERSION, in French and in English, made upon the Hebrew Text presented in the orig- inal with a transcription in modern characters and accom- panied by critical and grammatical notes, wherein the interpretation given to each word is proved by its radical analysis and its comparison with the analogous word in Samaritan, Chaldaic, Syriac, Arabic or Greek. CONTENTS OF PART FIRST INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. PAGE 1. Upon the Origin of Speech and upon the Study of the Tongues which, can lead to it .-.; 3 11. Hebraic Tongue : Authenticity of the Sepher of Moses; Vicissitudes experienced by this book. . 21 111. Continuation of the Re volutions of the Sepher. Origin of the Principal Versions which have been made 37 HEBRAIC GRAMMAR. Chapter I. General Principles. 1. The Real Purpose of this Grammar 55 11. Etymology and Definition 60 111. Division of Grammar: Parts of Speech 65 IV. Hebraic Alphabet : Comparative Alphabet 70-71 Chapter II. Signs Considered as Characters. 1. Hebraic Alphabet: its vowels: its origin 73 xiii Xi v CONTENTS PAGE 11. Origin of the Vowel Points 77 111. Effects of the Vowel Points. Samaritan Text. ... 84 Chapter III. Characters Considered as Signs. 1. Traced Characters, one of the elements of Language : Hieroglyphic Principle of their Primitive Form 89 11. Origin of Signs and Their Development: Those of the Hebraic Tongue 93 111. Use of the Signs : Example drawn from the French 99 Chapter IV. The Sign Producing the Boot. 1. Digression on the Principle and the Constitutive Elements of the Sign 103 11. Formation of the Root and of the Relation 107 111. Preposition and Inter jectiom 114 Chapter V. The Noun. 1 The Noun Considered under seven relations: Etymology 119 11. Quality 124 111. Gender 132 IV. Number 135 V. Movement 139 VI. Construct State 147 VII. Signification 150 Chapter VI. Nominal Relations. 1. Absolute Pronouns 151 11. Affixes , 155 111. Use of the Affixes 161 Chapter VII. The Verb. 1. Absolute Verb and Particular Verbs 167 CONTENTS .XV MM 11. Three Kinds of Particular Verbs '17S 111. Analysis of Nominal Verbs: Verbal Inflection 17Y Chapter VIII. Modifications of the Verb. 1. Form and Movement 183 11. Tense 187 111. Formation of Verbal Tenses by Means of Pronom- inal Persons 192 Chapter IX. Conjugations. 1. Radical Conjugation 197 Remarks upon the Radical Conjugation 207 11. Derivative Conjugation 212 Remarks upon the Derivative Conjugation 220 111. Compound Radical Conjugation with the Initial Ad- junction * . 225 Remarks on the Compound Radical Conjugation. Initial Adjunction 230 IV. Compound Radical Conjugation with the Initial Ad- junction J 233 Remarks on the Compound Radical Conjugation. . 238 V. Compound Radical Conjugation with the Termina- tive Adjunction 241 Remarks on the Compound Radical Conjugation. . 246 VI. Irregular Conjugations 250 Chapter X. Construction of Verbs : Adverbial Relations : Paragogic Characters: Conclusion. 1. Union of Verbs with Verbal Affixes 255 11. Adverbial Relations 262 111. Paragogic Characters 271 IV. Conclusion 275 XV 1 CONTENTS PAQB Radical Vocabulary : Prefatory Note 279 HEBRAIC ROOTS. K A. .. 287 2 B 300 2 G 310 -I D 318 H H. E 326 1 0. OU. W 334 I Z 339 n E. H. CH 345 ID T 356 " 1 361 D CH. KH 368 ? L 377 ID M 385 : N 394 D S 405 P U. H. WH 413 B PH 422 X TZ 430 p KQ 438 1 R 446 5? SH 455 n TH. . 465 The Hebraic Tongue Restored PART FIRST I INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. I. UPON THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH AND UPON THE STUDY OF THE TONGUES WHICH CAN LEAD TO IT. The origin of speech is generally unknown. It is in vain that savants of the centuries past have endeavoured to go back to the hidden principles of this glorious pheno- menon which distinguishes man from all the beings by which he is surrounded, reflects his thought, arms him with the torch of genius and develops his moral faculties; all that they have been able to do, after long labours, has been to establish a series of conjectures more or less in- genious, more or less probable, founded in general, upon the physical nature of man which they judged invariable, and which they took as basis for their experiments. I do not speak here of the scholastic theologians who in order to extricate themselves from perplexity upon this dif- ficult point, taught that man had been created possessor of a tongue wholly formed; nor of Bishop Walton who, having embraced this convenient opinion, gave as proof, the conversation of God Himself with the first man, and the discourses of Eve with the serpent ; l not reflecting that this so-called serpent which conversed with Eve, and to which God also spoke, might, therefore, have drawn from the same source of speech and participated in the tongue of the Divinity. I refer to those savants who, far from the dust and clamours of the school, sought in good faith the truth that the school no longer possessed. More- over, the theologians themselves had been abandoned long since by their disciples. Richard Simon, the priest, 2 from 1 Walton, Prolegom I. 2 Rich. Sim. Histoire crit. L. I, ch. 14 et 15. 4 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED whom we have an excellent critical history of the Old Testament, did not fear, relying upon the authority of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, to reject theological opinion in this respect, and to adopt that of Diodorus Siculus and even that of Lucretius, who attribute the formation of language to the nature of man and to the instigation of his needs. 3 It is not because I here oppose the opinion of Diodorus Siculus or Lucretius to that of the theologians, that one should infer that I consider it the best. All the eloquence of J. J. Rousseau could not make me approve of it. It is one extreme striking another extreme, and by this very thing departing from the just mean where truth abides. Rousseau in his nervous, passionate style, pictures the formation of society rather than that of language : he embellishes his fictions with most vivid colours, and he himself, drawn on by his imagination, believes real what is only fantastic. 4 One sees plainly in his writing a pos- sible beginning of civilization but no probable origin of speech. It is to no purpose that he has said that the meridional tongues are the daughters of pleasure and those of the North, of necessity : one still asks, how pleasure or necessity can bring forth simultaneously, words which an entire tribe agrees in understanding and above all agrees in adopting. Is it not he who has said, with cold, severe reason, that language could be instituted only by an agreement and that this agreement could not be con- ceived without language? This vicious circle in which a modern theosophist confines it, can it be eluded? "Those who devote themselves to the pretension of forming our tongues and all the science of our understanding, by the expedients of natural circumstances alone, and by our human means alone," says this theosophist, 5 "expose s Diod-Sic. L. II. "At varies linguae sonitus natura subegit Mittere, et utilitas expressit nomina rerum." L.UCRET. * Essai sur I'origlne des Langucs. 5 St.-Martin Esprit des choses, T. II p. 127. ORIGIN OF SPEECH 5 themselves voluntarily to this terrible objection that they themselves have raised; for he who only denies, does not destroy, and he does not refute an argument because he disapproves of it : if the language of man is an agreement, how is this Agreement established without language?" Read carefully both Locke and his most painstaking disciple Condillac; 6 you will, if you desire, have assisted at the decomposition of an ingenious contrivance; you will have admired, perhaps, the dexterity of the decom- poser ; but you will remain as ignorant as you were before, both concerning the origin of this contrivance, the aim proposed by its author, its inner nature and the principle which moves its machinations. Whether you reflect ac- cording to your own opinion, or whether long study has taught you think according to others, you will soon per- ceive in the adroit analyst only a ridiculous operator who, flattering himself that he is explaining to you how and why such an actor dances in the theatre, seizes a scalpel and dissects the legs of a cadaver. Your memory recalls Socrates and Plato. You hear them again rebuking harsh- ly the physicists and the metaphysicians of their time ; 7 you compare their irresistible arguments with the vain jactancy of these empirical writers, and you feel clearly that merely taking a watch to pieces does not suffice to give reason for its movement. But if the opinion of the theologians upon the origin of speech offends reason, if that of the historians and the philosophers cannot hold out against a severe examina- tion, it is therefore not given to man to know it. Man, who according to the meaning of the inscription of the temple of Delphi,* can know nothing only so far as he Locke. Essay concern. Human Understand. B. Ill; Condillac Looique. ^ Plat, dial Thcact. Phaedon. Crat. This famous inscription, Know thyself was, according to Pliny, a saying of the sage Chilo, a celebrated Greek philosopher who lived about 560 B. C. He was from Lacedaemon and died of joy, it was said, embracing his son, victor in the Olympic games. G THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED knows himself, is therefore condemned to be ignorant of what places him in the highest rank among sentient beings, of what gives him the sceptre of the earth, of what constitutes him veritably man, namely Speech! no! that cannot be, because Providence is just. Quite a consider- able number of the sages among all nations have pene- trated this mystery, and if, notwithstanding their efforts, these privileged men have been unable to communicate their learning and make it universal, it is because the means, the disciples or the favourable conditions for this, have failed them. For the knowledge of speech, that of the elements and the origin of language, are not attainments that can be transmitted readily to others, or that can be taken to pieces after the manner of the geometricians. To what- ever extent one may possess them, whatever profound roots they may have thrown into the mind, whatever numerous fruits they may have developed there, only the principle can ever be communicated. Thus, nothing in elementary nature is propagated at the same time: the most vigorous tree, the most perfect animal do not pro- duce simultaneously their likeness. They yield, according to their specie, a germ at first very different from tty&rn, which remains barren if nothing from without cooperates for its development. The archaeological sciences, that is to say, all those which go back to the principles of things, are in the same category. Vainly the sages who possess them are exhaust- ed by generous efforts to propagate them. The most fertile germs that they scatter, received by minds uncultivated or badly prepared, undergo the fate of seeds, which fall- ing upon stony ground or among thorns, sterile or choked die there. ; v Our savants have not lacked aid; it is the apti- tude for receiving it that has been lacking. , The greater part of them who ventured to write upon tongues, did not even know what a tongue was ; for it is not enough merely to have compiled grammars, or to have toiled laboriously ORIGIN OF SPEECH 7 to find the difference between a supine and a gerund; it is necessary to have explored many idioms, to have com- pared them assiduously and without prejudices; in order to penetrate, through the points of contact of their parti- cular genius, to the universal genius which presides over their formation, and which tends to make only one sole and same tongue. Among the ancient idioms of Asia, are three that it is absolutely imperative to understand if one would pro- ceed with assurance in the field of etymology and rise by degrees to the source of language. These idioms, that I can justly name tongues, in the restricted meaning which one has given to this word, are Chinese, Sanskrit and Hebrew. Those of my readers who are familiar with the works of the savants of Calcutta and particularly those of Sir William Jones, may perhaps be astonished that I name Hebrew in place of the Arabic from which this estimable writer derives the Hebraic idiom, and which he cites as one of the mother-tongues of Asia. I shall explain my thought in this respect, and at the same time state why I do not name either Persian, or Uigurian Tataric, which one might think I had forgotten. 'When Sir William Jones, glancing with observant eye over the vast continent of Asia and over its numerous dependent isles, placed therein the five ruling nations, among which he divided the heritage, he created a geo- graphical tableau of happy conception and great interest that the historian ought not to overlook. 8 But in establish- ing this division his consideration was rather of the power and extent of the peoples that he named, than of their true claims to anteriority; since he did not hesitate to say that the Persians, whom he ranked among the five ruling nations, draw their origin from the Hindus and Arabs, 9 and that the Chinese are only an Indian colony; 10 8 Asiat. Research. T. I. Ibid. T. II. p. 51. 10 Asiat. Research. T. II. p. 368, 379. 8 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED therefore, recognizing only three primordial sources, viz., that of the Tatars, that of the Hindus and that of the Arabs. Although I may not agree wholly with him in this conclusion, I infer nevertheless, as I have already said, that this writer, in naming the five principal nations of Asia, considered their power more than their true rights to anteriority. It is evident, to say the least, that if he had not been obliged to yield to the eclat with which the Arabic name is surrounded in these modern times, due to the appearance of Mohammed, to the propagation of the cult, and of the Islamic empire, Sir William Jones would not have chosen the Arabic people instead of the Hebrew people, thus making the former one of the primor- dial sources of Asia. This writer had made too careful a study of the Asiatic tongues not to have known that the names which we give to the Hebrews and to the Arabs, however much dissimilar they may appear, owing to our manner of writ- ing them, are in substance only the same epithet modified by two different dialects. All the world knows that both these peoples attribute their origin to the patriach Heber:* now, the name of this so-called patriarch, signi- fies nothing less than that which is placed behind or beyond, that which is distant, hidden, deceptive, de- prived of light; that which passes, that which terminates. that which is occidental, etc. The Hebrews, whose dialect is evidently anterior to that of the Arabs, have derived from it hebri and the Arabs harbi, by a transposition of letters which is a characteristic of their language. But whether it be pronounced hebri. or harbi, one or the other word expresses always that the people who bear it are found placed either beyond, or at the extremity, at the confines, or at tho occidental borders of a country. From * Following the Hebraic orthography isy Tiabar, following the Arabic L, Tiabar. The Hebraic derivative is-n^y habri, a Hebrew: the Jl* Arabic derivative Is ^ - harbi, an Arab. ORIGIN OF SPEECH 9 the most ancient times, this was the situation of the Hebrews or the Arabs, relative to Asia, whose name in its primitive root signifies the unique continent, the land, in other words, the Land of God. If, far from all systematic prejudice, one considers attentively the Arabic idiom, he discovers there the cer- tain marks of a dialect which, in surviving all the dialects emanated from the same branch, has become successively enriched from their debris, has undergone the vicissi- tudes of time, and carried afar by a conquering people, has appropriated a great number of words foreign to its primitive roots; a dialect which has been polished and fashioned upon the idioms of the vanquished people, and little by little shown itself very different from what it was in its origin; whereas the Hebraic idiom on the contrary (and I mean by this idiom that of Moses), long since extinct in its own country and lost for the people who spoke it, was concentrated in one unique book, where hardly any of the vicissitudes which had altered the Arfr- bic had been able to assail it ; this is what distinguishes it above all and what has made it my choice. This consideration has not escaped Sir William Jones. He has clearly seen that the Arabic idiom, toward which he felt a strong inclination, had never produced any work worthy of fixing the attention of men prior to the Koran, 11 which is, besides", only a development of the Sepher of Moses; whereas this Sepher, sacred refuge of the Hebrew tongue, seemed to him to contain, independent of a divine inspiration, 12 more true sublimity, exquisite beauties, pure morals, essential history and traits of poetry and eloquence, than all the assembled books writ- ten in any tongue and in any age of the world. However much may be said and however much one may, without doing the least harm to the Sepher, com- pare and even prefer certain works equally famous among 11 Asiat. Research. T. II. p. 13. 12 Ibid. T. II. p, 15. 10 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED the nations, I affirm that it contains for those who can read it, things of lofty conception and of deep wisdom; but it is assuredly not in the state in which it is shown to the vulgar readers, that it merits such praise. Sir William Jones undoubtedly understood it in its purity and this is what I like to believe. Besides, it is always by works of this nature that a tongue acquires its right to veneration. The books of uni- versal principles, called King, by the Chinese, those of divine knowledge, called Veda or Beda, by the Hindus, the Sepher of Moses, these are what make illustrious the Chinese, the Sanskrit and the Hebrew. Although Uigurian Tataric may be one of the primitive tongues of Asia, I have not included it as one that should be studied by the student who desires to go back to the principle of speech ; because nothing could be brought back to this principle in an idiom which has not a sacred literature. Now, how could the Tatars have had a sacred or profane literature, they who knew not even the characters of writing? The celebrated Genghis Khan, whose empire embraced an im- mense extent, did not find, according to the best writers, a single man among his Mongols capable of writing his dispatches. 13 Tamerlane, ruler in his turn of a part of Asia, knew neither how to read nor write. This lack of character and of literature, leaving the Tataric idioms in a continual fluctuation somewhat similar to that which the rude dialects of the savage peoples of America ex- perienced, makes their study useless to etymology and can only throw uncertain and nearly always false lights in the mind. One must seek the origin of speech only from authen- tic monuments, whereon speech itself has left its inefface- able imprint. If time and the scythe of revolutions had respected more the books of Zoroaster, I doubtless might have compared with the Hebrew, the ancient tongue of the Parsees, called Zend, in which are written the fragments 13 Traduct. franc, des Recher. Asiat. T. II. P. 49. Notes. ORIGIN OF SPEECH 11 which have come down to us; but after a long and im- partial examination, I cannot refrain from believing, not- withstanding all the recognition that I feel for the extra- ordinary labours of Anquetil-Duperron who has procur- ed them for us, that the book called today, the Zend- Avesta, by the Parsees, is only a sort of breviary, a compilation of prayers and litanies wherein are mingled here and there certain fragments from the sacred books of Zeradosht, the ancient Zoroaster, translated in the living tongue; for this is precisely what the word Zend signi- fies living tongue. The primitive Avesta was divided into twenty-one parts, called Nosk, and entered into all the details of nature, 14 as do the Vedas and Pouranas of the Hindus, with which it had perhaps more affinity than one imagines. The Boun-Dehesh, which Anquetil-Duperron has translated from the Pchlcci, a sort of dialect more modern still than the Zend, appears to be only an abridgment of that part of the Avesta which treated particularly of the origin of Beings and the birth of the Universe. Sir William Jones, who believes as I do that the orig- inal books of Zoroaster were lost, thinks that the Zend, in which are written the fragments that we. possess, is a dialect of Sanskrit, in which Pehlevi, derived from the Chaldaic and from the Cimmerian Tatars, has mingled many of its expressions. 15 This opinion, quite com form- able with that of the learned d'Herbelot who carries the Zend and Pehlevi back to Nabatsean Chaldaic, 16 that is, to the most ancient tongue of Assyria, is therefore most probable since the characters of Pehlevi and Zend are obviously of Chaldaic origin. I do not doubt that the famous inscriptions which are found in the ruins of ancient Isthakr, 17 named Persepolis by the Greeks, and of which no savant, up to this time, 14 Zend-Avesta. T. I. part II. p. 46. ir> Asiat. Research, T. II. p. 52 et suiv. 16 Bibl. ori. p. 514. IT Millin: Monumens inedits. 12 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED has been able to decipher the characters, belong to the tongue in which the sacred books of the Parsees were originally written before they had been abridged and translated in Pehlevi and Zend. This tongue, whose very name has disappeared, was perhaps spoken at the court of those monarchs of Iran, whom Mohsenal-Fany men- tions in a very curious book entitled Dabistan* and whom he assures had preceded the dynasty of the Pish- dadians, which is ordinarily regarded as the earliest. But without continuing further upon this digression, I believe I have made it sufficiently understood that the study of Zend cannot be of the same interest, nor produce the same results as that of Chinese, Sanskrit or Hebrew, since it is only a dialect of Sanskrit and can only offer sundry fragments of the sacred literature translated from an unknown tongue more ancient than itself. It is enough to make it enter as a sort of supplement in the research of the origin of speech, considering it as a link which binds Sanskrit to Hebrew. It is the same with the Scandinavian idiom, and the Runic poetry preserved in the Edda. 18 These venerable relics of the sacred literature of the Celts, our ancestors, ought to be regarded as a medium between the tongues of ancient Asia and that of modern Europe. They are not to be disdained as an auxiliary study, the more so since they are all that remains to us really authentic pertaining to the cult of the ancient Druids, and as the other Celtic dialects, such as Basque, Armoric Breton, Welsh Breton or Cymraeg, possessing no writings, can merit no sort of confidence in the important subject with which we are engaged. But let us return to the three tongues whose study I recommend: Chinese, Sanskrit and Hebrew; let us * This work which treats of the manners and customs of Per- sia, is not known except for a single extract inserted in the New Asiatic Miscellany, published by Gladwin, at Calcutta, 1789. is Edda Islandonim Haoniae, 1665, in-4. ORIGIN OF SPEECH 13 glance at them without concerning ourselves for the present, with their grammatical forms; let us fathom their genius and see in what manner they principally differ. The Chinese tongue is, of all the living tongues today, the most ancient ; the one whose elements are the simplest and the most homogeneous. Born in the midst of certain rude men, separated from other men by the result of a physical catastrophe which had happened to the globe, it was at first confined to the narrowest limits, yielding only scarce and material roots and not rising above the simplest perceptions of the senses. Wholly physical in its origin, it recalled to the memory only physical objects: about two hundred words composed its entire lexicon, and these words reduced again to the most restricted significa- tion were all attached to local and particular ideas. Nature, in thus isolating it from all tongues, defended it for a long time from mixture, anol when the men who spoke it, multiplied, spread abroad and commingled with other men, art came to its aid and covered it with an im- penetrable defense. By this defense, I mean the symbolic characters whose origin a sacred tradition attributes to Fo-Hi. This holy man, says the tradition, having examined the heavens and the earth, and pondered much upon the nature of intermediate things, traced the eight Koua, the various combinations of which sufficed to express all the ideas then developed in the intelligence of the people. By means of this invention, the use of knots in cords, which had been the custom up to that time, ceased.* Nevertheless, in proportion as the Chinese people ex- tended, in proportion as their intelligence made progress and became enriched with new ideas, their tongue fol- lowed these different developments. The number of its words fixed by the symbolic Koua, being unable to be augmented, was modified by the accent. From being par- * This tradition is drawn from the great history Tsee-tchi-Kien- Kang-Mou, which the Emperor Kang-hi ordered translated into Tataric and embellished with a preface. 14 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED ticular they became generic ; from the rank of nouns they were raised to that of verbs; the substance was distin- guished from the spirit. At that time was felt the neces- sity for inventing new symbolic characters, which, uniting easily, the one with the other, could follow the flight of thought and lend themselves to all the movements of the imagination. 19 This step taken, nothing further arrested the course of this indigenous idiom, which, without ever varying its elements, without admitting anything foreign in its form, has sufficed during an incalculable succession of ages for the needs of an immense nation; which has given it sacred books that no revolution has been able to destroy, and has been enriched with all the profoundness, brilliancy and purity that moral and metaphysical genius can produce. Such is this tongue, which, defended by its symbolic forms, inaccessible to all neighbouring idioms, has seen them expiring around it, in the same manner that a vig- orous tree sees a host of frail plants, which its shade de- prives of the generating heat of day, wither at its feet. Sanskrit did not have its origin in India. If it is allowable for me to express my thought without promis- ing to prove it, since this would be neither the time nor the place; I believe that a people much older than the Hindus, inhabiting another region of the earth, came in very remote times to be established in Bharat-Wcrsh, to- day Hindustan, and brought there a celebrated idiom call- ed Bali or Pali, many indications of which are found in Singhala, of the island of Ceylon, in the kingdoms of Siam, of Pegu, and in all that part which is called the em- pire of the Burmans. Everywhere was this tongue consider- ed sacred. 20 Sir William Jones, whose opinion is the same as mine relative to the exotic origin of Sanskrit, without however giving the Pali tongue as its primitive source, 19 Mtm. concer. les Chinois. T. I. p. 273 et suiv. Ibid. T. VIII. p 133 et suiv. Mem. de VAcad. des Inscrip. T. XXXIV. in-4. p. 25. 20 Descript. de Siam. T. I. p. 25. Asia*. Resear. T. VI. p. 307. ORIGIN OF SPEECH 15 shows that the pure Hindi, originating in Tatary, rude jargon of the epoch of that colonization, has received from some sort of foreign tongue its grammatical forms, and finding itself in a convenient position to be, as it were, grafted by it, has developed a force of expression, harmo- nious and copious, of which all the Europeans who have been able to understand it speak with admiration. 21 In truth, what other tongue ever possessed a sacred literature more widespread? How many years shall yet pass ere Europeans, developed from their false notions, will have exhausted the prolific mine which it offers! Sanskrit, in the opinion of all the English writers who have studied it, is the most perfect tongue that men have ever spoken. 22 It surpasses Greek and Latin in reg- ularity as in richness, and Persian and Arabic in poetic conceptions. With our European tongues it preserves a striking analogy that holds chiefly to the form of its characters, which being traced from left to right have served, according to Sir William Jones, as type or proto- type of all those which have been and which still are in use in Africa and in Europe. Let us now pass on to the Hebraic tongue. So many abstract fancies have been uttered concerning this tongue, and the systematic or religious prejudice which has guid- ed the pen of its historians, has so obscured its origin, that I scarcely dare to say what it is, so simple is what I have to say. This simplicity will, nevertheless, have its merit; for if I do not exalt it to the point of saying with the rabbis of the synagogue or the doctors of the Church, that it has presided at the birth of the world, that angels and men have learned it from the mouth of God Himself, and that this celestial tongue returning to its source, will become that which will be spoken by the blessed in heav- en ; neither shall I say with the modern philosophists, that 21 Ibid. T. I. p. 307. 22 Wilkin's Notes on the Hitopadcsa. p. 294. Halhed, dans la preface de la Gramm. du Bengale, ct dans le Code dcs lois des Oentoux. 1C THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED it is a wretched jargon of a horde of malicious, opinion- ated, suspicious, avaricious and turbulent men ; I shall say without any partiality, that the Hebrew contained in the Sepher, is the pure idiom of the ancient Egyptians. This truth will not please those prejudiced pro or con, I am certain of this; but it is no fault of mine if the truth so rarely flatters their passions. No, the Hebraic tongue is neither the first nor the last of the tongues; it is not the only one of the mother- tongues, as a modern theosophist, whom I esteem greatly otherwise, has inopportunely believed, because it is not the only one that has sprung from the divine wonders; 23 it is the tongue of a powerful, wise and religious people; of a thoughtful people, profoundly learned in moral sci- ences and friend of the mysteries; of a people whose wisdom and laws have been justly admired. This tongue separated from its original stem, estranged from its cradle by the effect of a providential emigration, an account of which is needless at the moment, became the particular idiom of the Hebrew people ; and like a productive branch, which a skillful agriculturist has transplanted in ground prepared for this purpose, so that it will bear fruit long after the worn out trunk whence it comes has disappeared, so has this idiom preserved and brought down to us the precious storehouse of Egyptian learning. But this storehouse has not been trusted to the cap- rice of hazard. Providence, who willed its preservation, has known well how to shelter it from storms. The book which contains it, covered with a triple veil, has crossed the torrent of ages respected by its possessors, braving the attention of the profane, and never being understood except by those who would not divulge its mysteries. With this statement let us retrace our steps. I have said that the Chinese, isolated from their birth, having departed from the simplest perceptions of the senses, had reached by development the loftiest conceptions of intel- 23 St-Martin: Esprit des cTioses, T. II. p. 213. ORIGIN OF SPEECH 17 ligonce; it was quite the contrary with the Hebrew: this distinct idiom, entirely formed from a most highly perfect- ed tongue, composed wholly of expressions universal, intel- ligible and abstract, delivered in this state to a sturdy but ignorant people, had, in its hands fallen from degen- eracy to degeneracy, and from restriction to restriction, to its most material elements; all that was intelligible had become sentient ; all that was universal had become parti- cular. Sanskrit, holding a sort of mean between the two, since it was the result of a formed tongue, grafted upon an unformed idiom, unfolded itself at first with admirable promptness: but after having, like the Chinese and the Hebrew, given its divine fruits, it has been unable to re- press the luxury of its productions: its astonishing flex- ibility has become the source of an excess which neces- sarily has brought about its downfall. The Hindu writers, abusing the facility which they had of composing words, have made them of an excessive length, not only of ten, fifteen and twenty syllables, but they have pushed the extravagance to the point of containing in simple inscrip- tions, terms which extend to one hundred and even one hundred and fifty. 24 Their vagabond imagination has followed the intemperance of their elocution; an im- penetrable obscurity has spread itself over their writ- ings; their tongue has disappeared. But this tongue displays in the Ycdas an economical richness. It is there that one can examine its native flex- ibility and compare it with the rigidity of the Hebrew, which beyond the amalgamation of root and sign, does not admit of any composition : or, compare it with the facility with which the Chinese allows its words, all monosyl- lables, to be joined without ever being confused. The prin- cipal beauties of this last idiom consist in its characters, the symbolic combination of which offers a tableau more or less perfect, according to the talent of the writer. It 24 Asiat. Research. T. I. p. 279, 357, 366, etc. 18 THE HEBKAIC TONGUE KESTOKED can be said without metaphor, that they paint pictures in their discourse. 25 The written tongue differs essentially from the spoken tongue.- 6 The effect of the latter is very mediocre, and as it were, of no importance; whereas, the former, carries the reader along presenting him with a series of sublime pictures. Sanskrit characters say nothing to the imagination, the eye can run through them without giving the least attention; it is to the happy composition of its words, to their harmony, to the choice and to the blending of ideas that this idiom owes its eloquence. The greatest effect of Chinese is for the eyes ; that of Sanskrit, for the ears. The Hebrew unites the two advantages but in a less proportion. Sprung from Egypt where both hiero- glyphic and literal characters were used at the same time, 27 it offers a symbolic image in each of its words, al- though its sentence conserves in its ensemble all the elo- quence of the spoken tongue. This is the double faculty which has procured for it so much eulogy on the part of those who felt it and so much sarcasm on the part of those who have not. Chinese characters are written from top to bottom, one under the other, ranging the columns from right to left; those of Sanskrit, following the direction of a hori- zontal line, going from left to right; Hebraic characters, on the contrary, proceed from right to left. It appears that in the arrangement of the symbolic characters, the genius of the Chinese tongue recalls their origin, and makes them still descend from heaven as, it was said, their first inventor had done. Sanskrit and Hebrew, in tracing their lines in an opposite way, also make allusion to the manner in which their literal characters were in- vented ; for, as Leibnitz very well asserted, everything has its sufficient reason ; but as this usage pertains especially to the history of peoples, this is not the place to enter in- 25 Mem. concern, les CMnois. T. I. 20 Ibid. T. VIII. p. 133 & 185. 2T Clem. Alex. Strom. L. V. Herodot. L. II. 36. ORIGIN OF SPEECH 19 to the discussion that its examination would involve. I shall only observe that the method which the Hebrew follows was that of the ancient Egyptians, as related by Herodotus. 28 The Greeks, who received their letters from the Phoenicians, wrote also for some time from right to left; their origin, wholly different, made them soon modify this course. At first they traced their lines in forms of furrows, going from right to left and returning alternately from left to right ; ** afterward, they fixed upon the sole method that we have to-day, which is that of Sanskrit, with which the European tongues have, as I have already said, much analogy. These three styles of writing merit careful con- sideration, as much in the three typical tongues as in the derivative tongues which are directly or indirectly attach- ed to them. I conclude here this parallelism: to push it further would be useless, so much the more as, not being able to lay before the reader at once the grammatical forms of Chinese, Sanskrit and Hebrew, I should run the risk of not being understood. If I had felt sure of having the time and the assist- ance necessary, I should not have hesitated to take first the Chinese, for basis of my work, waiting until later to pass on from Sanskrit to Hebrew, upholding my method by an original translation of the King, the Veda and the Sepher; but being almost certain of the contrary, I have decided to begin with the Hebrew because it offers an in- terest more direct, more general, more within the grasp of my readers and promises besides, results of an early usefulness. I trust that if the circumstances do not per- mit me to realize my idea in regard to Sanskrit and Chin- 28 Herodot. Ibid. 20 Mtm. de I'Acnd. des Inscript. T. XXXIX. in-12 p. 129. Court-de- GSbelin, Orig. du Lang. p. 471. 20 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED ese, that there will be found men sufficiently courageous, sufficiently obedient to the impulse which Providence gives toward the perfecting of the sciences and the welfare of humanity, to undertake this laborious work and terminate what I have commenced. II. HEBRAIC TONGUE: AUTHENTICITY OF THE SEPHER OF MOSES; VICISSITUDES EXPERIENCED BY THIS BOOK. In choosing the Hebraic tongue, I have not been ignorant of an}' of the difficulties, nor any of the dangers awaiting me. Some knowledge of speech, and of ton- gues in general, and the unusual course that I had given to my studies, had convinced me long since that the Heb- raic tongue was lost, and that the Bible which we possess was far from being the exact translation of the Sepher of Moses. Having attained this original Sepher by other paths than that of the Greeks and Latins, and carried along from the Orient to the Occident of Asia by an impulse contrary to the one ordinarily followed in the exploration of tongues, I saw plainly that the greater part of the vulgar interpretations were false, and that, in order to restore the tongue of Moses in its primitive grammar, it would be necessary to clash violently with the sc'entific or religious prejudices that custom, pride, in- terest, the rust of ages and the respect which it attached to ancient errors, concurred in consecrating, strengthen- ing and preserving. But if one had to listen always to these pusillanim- ous considerations, what things would ever be perfected? Has man in his adolescence the same needs that he has in his infancy? Does he not change his apparel as well as his nourishment? Are not the lessons of manhood dif- ferent from those of youth? Do not the savage nations advance toward civilization and those which are civilized toward the acquisition of sciences? Does not one see the cave of the troglodyte make way for the lodge of the hun- 21 22 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED ter, the tent of the herdsman, the hut of the agriculturist, and this cabin transformed successively, thanks to the progressive development of commerce and the arts, into a commodious house, castle, magnificent palace or sump- tuous temple? This superb city that we inhabit and this Louvre which spreads before our eyes such rich architec- ture, do not these all repose upon the same soil where a few miserable hovels of fishermen stood not long ago? Be not deceived : there are moments indicated by Providence, when the impulse that it gives toward new ideas, undermining precedents useful in their beginning but now superfluous, forces them to yield, even as a skillful architect clears away the rough framework which has supported the arches of his edifice. It would be just as foolish or culpable to attack these precedents or to dis- turb this framework, when they still support either the social edifice or the particular one, and proceeding, un- der pretext of their rusticity, their ungracefulness, their necessary obstruction, to overthrow them as out of place; as it would be ridiculous or timid to leave them all there by reason of a foolish or superannuated respect, or a superstitious and condemnatory weakness, since they are of no further use, since they encumber, since they are an obstruction, since they detract from the wisest institu- tions or the noblest and loftiest structures. Undoubtedly, in the first instance, and following my comparison, either the prince or the architect should stop the audacious ig- noramus and prevent him from being buried beneath the inevitable ruins: but in the second instance, they should, on the contrary, welcome the intrepid man who, present- ing himself with either torch or lever in hand, offers them, notwithstanding certain perils, a service always difficult. Had I lived a century or two earlier, even if fortunate circumstances assisted by steadfast labour had placed the same truths within my grasp, I would have kept silent about them, as many savants of all nations have been ob- liged to do; but the times are changed. I see in looking AUTHENTICITY OF THE SEPHER 23 about me that Providence is opening the portals of a New Day. On all sides, institutions are putting themselves in harmony with the enlightenment of the century. I have not hesitated. Whatever may be the success of my efforts, their aim has been the welfare of humanity and this inner consciousness is sufficient for me. I am about therefore, to restore the Hebraic tongue in its original principles and show the rectitude and force of these principles, giving by their means a new transla- tion of that part of the Sepher which contains the Cos- mogony of Moses. I feel myself bound to fulfill this double task by the very choice that I have made, the motives of which it is 'useless to explain further. But it is well, perhaps, before entering into the details of the Grammar, and of the numerous notes preceding my translation which prepare and sustain it, that I reveal here the true conditions of things, so as to fortify upright minds against the wrong direction that might be given them, showing the exact point of the question to exploring minds, and make it clearly understood to those whose in- terests or prejudices, of whatever sort, might lead them astray, that I shall set at naught all criticism which may come from the limits of science, whether supported by delusory opinions or authorities, and that I shall recog- nize only the worthy champion who shall present himself upon the field of truth, armed with truth. It is well known that the Fathers of the Church have believed, until Saint Jerome, that the Hellenistic version called the Scptuagmt, was a divine work written by pro- phets rather than by simple translators, often even un- aware, from what Saint Augustine says, that another original existed; * but it is also known that Saint Jerome, judging this version corrupt in innumerable passages, and by no means exact, 31 substituted a Latin version for it 30 Walton. Proleg. IX. Rich. Simon, Hist. crit. L. II. ch. 2. August. L. III. c. 25. 31 Hieron. in qua'St. heir. Rich. Simon. Ibid. L. II. ch. 3. 24 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED that was considered the only authentic one by the Council of Trent, and in defense of which the Inquisition has not feared to kindle the flames of the stake. 3 - Thus the Fathers have contradicted beforehand the decision of the Council, and the decision of the Council has, in its turn, condemned the opinion of the Fathers; so that one could not find Luther entirely wrong, when he said that the Hellenistic interpreters had not an exact knowledge of Hebrew, and that their version was as void of meaning as of harmony, 33 since he followed the sentiment of Saint Jerome, sanctioned in some degree by the Council; nor even blame Calvin and the other wise reformers for hav- ing doubted the authenticity of the Vulgate, notwith- standing the infallible decision of the Council, 34 since Saint Augustine had indeed condemned this work accord- ing to the idea that every Church had formed in his time. It is therefore, neither the authority of the Fathers, nor that of the Councils that can be used against me; for the one destroying the other, they remain ineffectual. It will be necessary to demonstrate by a complete and per- fect knowledge of Hebrew, and not by Greek and Latin citations to which I take exception, but by interpreta- tions founded upon better principles than mine, to prove to me that I have misunderstood this tongue, and that the bases upon which I place my grammatical edifice are false. One clearly realizes, at this time in which we are living, that it is only with such arguments one can ex- pect to convince me.* 32 Mariana: pr. Edit. vulg. c. I. 33 Luther sympos. Cap. de Linguis. 34 Fuller, in miscell. Causabon. adv. Baron. * The Fathers of the Church can unquestionably be quoted like other writers, but it is upon things de facto, and in accordance with the rules of criticism. When it is a question of saying that they have believed that the translation of the Septuagint was a work inspired of God, to quote them in such case is unobjectionable; but if one pre- tends thus to prove it, the quotation is ridiculous. It is necessary, before engaging in a critical discussion, to study the excellent rules AUTHENTICITY OF THE SEPHER 25 But if honest minds are astonished that after more than twenty centuries, I alone have been able to penetrate the genius of the tongue of Moses, and understand the writings of this extraordinary man, I shall reply frankly that I do not believe that it is so; I think, on the con- trary, that many men have, at different times and among different peoples, possessed the understanding of the Sepher in the way that I possess it ; but some have pru- dently concealed this knowledge whose divulgence would have been dangerous at that time, while others have en- veloped it with veils so thick as to be attacked with dif- ficulty. But if this explanation will not be accepted, I would invoke the testimony of a wise and painstaking man, who, being called upon to reply to a similar objec- tion explained thus his thought : "It is very possible that a man, secluded in the confines of the Occident and liv- ing in the nineteenth century after Christ, understands better the books of Moses, those of Orpheus, and the frag- ments which remain to us of the Etruscans, than did the Egyptian, Greek and Roman interpreters of the age of Pericles and Augustus. The degree of intelligence re- quired to understand the ancient tongues is independent of the mechanism and the material of those tongues. It is not only a question of grasping the meaning of the words, it is also necessary to enter into the spirit of the ideas. Often words offer in their vulgar relation a mean- ing wholly opposed to the spirit that has presided at their rapprochement. . . ." 35 I have said that I consider the Hebraic idiom con- tained in the Sepher, as a transplanted branch of the Egyptian tongue. This is an assertion the historic proof of which I cannot give at this moment, because it would draw me into details too foreign to my subject; but it seems to me that plain, common sense should be enough laid down by Fre"ret the most judicious critic that France has possessed. Voyez Acad. de Belles-Let. T. VI. Memoir, p. 146. T. IV. p. 411. T. XVIII. p. 49. T. XXI. Hist. p. 7. 35 Court-de GSbelln: Mond. primit. T. I, p. 88. 26 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED here: for, in whatever manner the Hebrews may have es- caped, one cannot deny that they made a long sojourn in Egypt. Even though this sojourn were of only four or five centuries duration as everyone is led to believe;* I ask in all good faith, whether a rude tribe deprived of all literature, without civil or religious institutions that might hold it together, could not assume the tongue of the country in which it lived; a tribe which, transported to Babylon for only seventy years, and while it formed a corps of the nation, ruled by its particular law, sub- missive to an exclusive cult, was unable to preserve its maternal tongue and bartered it for the Syriac-Aramrean, a sort of Chaldaic dialect; 36 for it is well known that Hebrew, lost from this epoch, ceased to be the vulgar tongue of the Jews. Therefore, I believe that one cannot, without volun- tarily ignoring the evidence, reject so natural an asser- tion and refuse to admit that the Hebrews coming out from Egypt after a sojourn of more than four hundred years, brought the tongue with them. I do not mean by this to destroy what Dochart, Grotius, Huet, Leclerc, 37 and other erudite moderns have advanced concerning the radical identity which they have rightly admitted be- tween Hebrew and Phoenician; for I know that this last dialect brought into Egypt by the Shepherd kings became identified with the ancient Egyptian long before the ar- rival of the Hebrews at the banks of the Nile. Thus the Hebraic idiom ought therefore to have very close relations with the Phoenician, Chaldaic, Arabic and all those sprung from the same source; but for a long time cultivated in Egypt, it had acquired intellectual de- velopments which, prior to the degeneracy of which I have spoken, made it a moral tongue wholly different * In the Second Book of the Sepher, entitled mcty fl^W WAleh- Shemoth ch. 12 v. 40, one reads that this sojourn was 430 years. 36 Walton Proleg. III. Rich. Simon: Hist. crit. L. II. ch. 17. 37 Bochart, Chanaan L. II. ch. I. Grotius: Comm. in Genes, c. II. Huet: Dtmonst. Evan. prop. IV. c. 3. Leclerc: Diss. de Ling. hebr. AUTHENTICITY OF THE SEPHER 27 from the vulgar Canaanitish tongue. Is it needful to say to what degree of perfection Egypt had attained? Who of my readers does not know the stately eulogies given it by Bossuet, when, laying aside for a moment his theolog- ical partiality, he said, that the noblest works and the most beautiful art of this country consisted in moulding men ; 38 that Greece was so convinced of this that her greatest men, Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, even Lycurgus and Solon, those two great legislators, and others whom it is unnecessary to name, went there to acquire wisdom. Now, had not Moses been instructed in all the scien- ces of the Egyptians? Had he not, as the historian of the Acts of the Apostles insinuated, 39 begun there to be "mighty in words and deeds?" Think you that the dif- ference would be very great, if the sacred books of the Egyptians, having survived the debris of their empire, allowed you to make comparison with those of Moses? Simplicius who, up to a certain point had been able to make this comparison, found so much that was conform- able, * that he concluded that the prophet of the Hebrews had walked in the footsteps of the ancient Thoth. Certain modern savants after having examined the Sepher in incorrect translations, or in a text which they were incapable of understanding, struck with certain re- petitions, and believing they detected in the numbers taken literally, palpable anachronisms, have imagined, now, that Moses had never existed, and then, that he had worked upon scattered memoirs, whose fragments he him- self or his secretaries had clumsily patched together. 41 It has also been said that Homer was an imaginary being; as if the existence of the Iliad and the Odyssey, these master-pieces of poetry, did not attest the existence of 88 Bossuet: Hist. Univers. III. part. 3. 39 Act. VII. v. 22. 40 Simplic. Comm. phys. ariftt. L. VIII p. 268. 41 Spinosa: tract, theol. c. 9. Hobbes: Leviath. Part. Ill, c. 33. Isaac de la Peyrere: Syst. thcol. Part. I. L. IV. c. I. Leclerc, Bolin- broke, Voltaire, Boulanger, Fr6ret, etc. 28 THE HEBRAIC TONGUE RESTORED their author! He must have little poetic instinct and poor understanding of the arrangement and plan of an epic work, who could conceive such a false idea of man and his conceptions, and be persuaded that a book like the Sepher, the King or the Veda could be put forward as genuine, be raised by fraud to the rank of divine Writ- ings, and be compiled with the same heedlessness that certain authors display in their crude libels. Undoubtedly certain notes, certain commentaries, certain reflections written at first marginally, have slip- ped into the text of the Sepher ; Esdras has restored badly some of the mutilated passages; but the statue of the Pythian Apollo on account of a few slight breaks, remains none the less standing as the master-piece of an unrival- led sculptor whose unknown name is a matter of less con- sequence. Not recognizing in the Sepher the stamp of a grand man shows lack of knowledge; not wishing that this grand man be called Moses shows lack of criticism. It is certain that Moses made use of more ancient books and perhaps of sacerdotal memoirs, as has been sus- pected by Leclerc, Richard Simon and the author of Con- jectures upon Genesis. 42 But Moses does not hide it ; he cites in two or three passages of the Sepher the title of the works which are before his eyes: the book of the Genera- tions of Adam; 43 the book of the Wars of the Lord; 44 the book of the Sayings of the Seers. 45 The book of Jasher is mentioned in Joshua. 4