Page images
PDF
EPUB

As a further evidence of the correctness of this interpretation, it should be mentioned that this ancient manner of reckoning was continued after the flood of Xisuthrus through 9 sari, 2 neri, and 8 sossi, when these terms are suddenly dropped, and the reigns given in solar years. It is true that the break is after a succession of 86 kings, but the kingdom continues with a simple change of dynasties; there is no passing from the reign of gods or demigods to that of mortal men, such as would be not only natural, but necessary, in order to account for the immense difference in the duration of the reigns. While the pretended antediluvian reigns varied from 10,000 to 64,800 years in length, and those immediately following averaged full 400 years each, the eight Median kings that succeeded extended only over 224 years, or an average of about 28 years; after which came other dynasties (Chaldean, Arabian, and Assyrian), all of ordinary historical lengths. These discrepancies can only be explained by the supposition that, in the prehistoric periods, days and months were magnified into years, as we have already seen was the case in the mythologic chronology of Egypt.*

I have dwelt the longer on these measures of time in Chaldea, because the subject has not met

* Ante, p. 67 seq.

with justice from some writers of high standing. For example, Sir George Cornwall Lewis, in his Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, in speaking of Chaldean antiquities, gives all the high numbers which he found scattered through ancient authors, as expressing the antiquity of that nation, as 720,000, 432,000, etc., years; but he adds not a word as to the peculiar manner in which time was computed by that people, and which would render an interpretation more nearly consistent with history both plausible and probable. And Philip Smith, in his History of the World, a very valuable work, mentions the Chaldean antediluvian period of 432,000 years, and the postdiluvian period of 34,080 years, as computed by sars, and explains that a sar is 3600 years, without a word to intimate that any other value has ever been given to the term, or is even possible.* He then exhibits a chronological table of Babylonian history, of eight postdi

*He adds a note in the following unqualified language: "In the Babylonian system of notation, the numbers 6 and 10 were employed alternately. Time was measured ordinarily by the soss, the ner, and the sar— the soss being 10 X 6= 60 years, the ner 60 X 10 = = 600 years, and the sar 600 X 6 = 3600 years. The next term in this series would evidently be 3600 X 10=36,000 years, and the term following 36,000 X 6=216,000 years. Berosus' antediluvian cycle consists of 432,000, or two such periods." Vol. i. p. 195.

luvian dynasties, extending down to B. C. 538, the first of which comprised eighty-six kings during the aforesaid period of 34.080 years. He simply styles this mythic;" yet when we consider how natural is the reckoning which makes the sarus 3600 days instead of years, — i. e., 10 years of 360 days each, -how simple and consistent with the rude and elementary knowledge of those early times, and how harmonious also with the facts of history as learned from other sources, we cannot but wonder that eminent scholars should have disregarded it, and preferred theories so much more complicated instead. Such preferences wholly mistake the character of those remote ages when knowledge, especially astronomical knowledge, was very simple, and embraced only the most obvious facts. At that time nothing was known of what in later times were called "lunar periods." The whole meaning was on the surface, and not involved in a mass of recondite facts, which required an intricate calculation to discover, and an intricate theory to explain them.

Our conclusion, then, is this: that while the immense periods of Chaldean antediluvian reigns are not historical, neither are they wholly mythical. In this respect they differ from the corresponding periods of Egyptian chronology. They contain his

torical elements which have a twofold value — negative and positive. The negative is that, interpreted as they have now been, they contain nothing inconsistent with the Mosaic account of the creation. The very longest duration assigned to the antediluvian period may easily be brought within the 2256 years assigned to it in the Septuagint. The positive value is, that so far as they go, they confirm the sacred record. As in the latter, they assert that there was an antediluvian period. The ten generations of kings correspond with the line of ten patriarchs from Adam to Noah. The details of Chaldean tradition are but dim and distorted, but easily recognizable, copies of the events mentioned in the Scriptures. Chaldean and Jewish antiquities cover precisely the same ground. Moses and Berosus speak of the same times, and, in general, of the same facts; not, indeed, always with the same fullness, some particulars being recorded by one and some by the other, but the ground covered by each is the same, and the two narratives, instead of being set in antagonism, should be taken as mutually confirmatory.

[ocr errors]

The date of the earliest historical dynasty after the flood is thought to be established thus: The list of astronomical observations, sent by Callisthenes to Aristotle, in the time of Alexander the Great, ex

tended backward in an uninterrupted series 1903 years, i. e., till B. C. 2234. This is supposed to have been at the beginning of the IIId dynasty of Berosus, which was Chaldean, and under which the worship of the heavenly bodies began. Previous to this, a Median dynasty, who were probably of the Turanian or Scythian race, had reigned 224 years, carrying up the monarchy to B. C. 2458. Still further back was the before-mentioned "mythic" dynasty of 86 kings, whose duration was said to have been 34,080 years, so that the earliest historical date is that of the beginning of the second dynasty, B. C. 2458.* The existence, however, of this Median dynasty, much more its assigned duration, is very. uncertain, lying, as it does, in the very border land between fable and history, and with both, probably, in varying proportions, intermingling in it.

* Smith's History of the World, vol. i. p. 196.

.

« PreviousContinue »