far as we know, aspired to foreign conquest and the foundation of one great empire till the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Being not distracted by schemes of ambition, they turned their attention to the arts of peace, and arrived at a high pitch of civilization even in very early times. Their achievements in building and sculpture witness for themselves after four thousand years. The lucidity of the atmosphere, where the stars rather blaze than shine, led to the study of the heavenly bodies; and astronomy, with its kindred science of astrology, received the greatest care at the hands of the learned class. Mathematics, law, government, were duly studied and reduced to system; weaving, metal-working, gem-engraving, were practised with remarkable skill. Writing was well known, and libraries were collected, the books being tablets of clay on which letters were impressed. One has always been accustomed to picture the patriarch Abraham dressed in garments like the sheikhs of the desert, and from engravings on seals which have been found among the débris of ruined buildings, we see that at this time long flowing robes, richly embroidered, were used by the chiefs of the country.

Such was Chaldæa. In this highly civilized but idolatrous land, amid this remarkable people, and with such surroundings, Abram was born, some two thousand or more years before the Christian era. He appears to have been the youngest of three brothers, the sons of Terah, who is reckoned the tenth in descent from Noah, as Noah is accounted the tenth in descent from Adam. That Abram in the genealogy (Gen. xi. 27) is named before his brothers, Nahor and Haran, may be explained by the fact that he was the heir of God's promises, and the personage whose history was of such vast importance that the rights of primogeniture were overborne by this consideration. The eldest of the three was probably Haran, as Nahor married his daughter Milcah, and Abram (as it is supposed) his other daughter Iscah or Sarai,' who was ten years younger than

According to Josephus ("Antiq.” i. 6. 5), Pseudo-Jonathan, and Jerome, "Quæst. in Gen." xi. 29, Sarai was the daughter of Haran and the same as Iscah. See Beer, "Leben Abrah.," pp. 18, 116. The inconsistency with the assertion, chap. xx. 12, that Sarai was Abraham's halfsister, is overcome by the supposition, that in saying she was the daughter of his father but not of her mother, Abraham uses 'daughter" for "granddaughter," such relationships being not expressed with modern exactness; and she is not called Terah's daughter, but his daughter-in-law, in chap. xi. 31.

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her husband. Another argument for the same fact may be found in the marriage of Abraham's son Isaac to Rebecca, the granddaughter of Nahor by the youngest of his eight sons. Unless we suppose that Abraham was greatly the junior of Haran, such a marriage would suggest a very remarkable disparity of years, which we know did not exist. But taking Nahor as the eldest son, born when Terah was seventy years old, and remembering that Terah died at the age of two hundred and five when Abram was seventy-five, we find that his father was one hundred and thirty years of age when Abram was born. The name he bore has been recognized in the form Abu-ramu, "the exalted father," in some of the early Babylonian contracttablets; just as Sarah is the Assyrian Sarrat, " queen," and Milcah is "princess" in the same language.

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Terah seems to have been an idolater; Joshua (chap. xxiv. 2) speaks of him and his family as worshipping other gods; and we find his descendant Laban possessed of "images" or teraphim, and calling them his gods (Gen. xxxi. 30), the honouring of which, whether they were used for purposes of divination and magic, or regarded as guarantees of domestic prosperity, showed an amount of ignorance and superstition, incompatible with sincere worship of the true God.

That the knowledge of the true God had become greatly obscured even in Noah's time is certain from the incident of the building of Babel; deterioration once begun is not easily arrested; rather, its tendency is to develope itself in grosser and deadlier forms. Even the descendants of Shem, who had longest retained the pure spirit of religion, had gone astray; every century that passed bore witness to the decay of piety and of the knowledge of God. Some new intervention was required. To avert this growing degeneracy God designed to choose out a family which should keep alive true religion, be the receptacle of Divine communication, and finally give to a fallen world the seed of the woman to be its Redeemer. The family thus selected was that of Terah, and the individual member who was ordained to receive the revelation was Abram. From this centre celestial light was to radiate. As far as we know, from the time of Noah the Divine voice had not been heard; the heavens had

"Fresh Light from the Monuments," p. 46; "Monthly Intrepreter," lii, 464.

not sent forth a visitant to earth; the pure faith had been left
to the support of tradition. There was a pause in the outward
communication; there was no open vision. And men had
already swerved aside; they had learned to worship and serve
the creature instead of the Creator; they had indeed sunk into
creature worship; they had refused that apprehension of God
which the light of conscience and the physical universe might
have taught; and losing sight of the unity and spirituality of
the Divine Being, they became the slaves of their own lusts,
fell into unnameable sensualities, and imagined deities of like
character with their own degraded instincts.1 The lesson of the
Flood had lost its power, and a new revelation was needed, if
the knowledge of God was not to be wholly obliterated. The
method by which God works is that which is always found most
efficacious, which is true in nature as in grace—namely, from
within outwards, from a nucleus to its surroundings. The patri-
archal principle which obtained so largely in primitive times
afforded great facilities for the separation of one family for
this purpose.
The distinctions of race and clan and tribe were
clearly marked out and maintained, and it was no hard task
to observe them and keep them unviolated. Looking forward
to this future selection Noah had said, "Blessed be the Lord
God of Shem" (Gen. ix. 26). From this individual among his
sons the knowledge of Jehovah should spread to Ham and
Japheth, and unto the utmost parts of the earth. It was in view
of this choice of a people to be the bearers of salvation that
Moses sang (Deut. xxxii. 8):

"When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
When He separated the children of men,

He set the bounds of the peoples

According to the number of the children of Israel."

Not that God left Himself without witness in the rest of the world. Natural religion, the law of conscience, moral government, were not lost; there was still light, if men chose to see it and guide their way by it. We learn in the case of Melchizedek and Balaam that true religion overpassed the limits of the single family, and found a home in most unlikely spots. The Canaanites were of Hamitic descent, yet among them traces of the old monotheistic faith declared themselves. But God thought fit

See Liddon, "Bampton Lect.," vi

to place the germ of the plant, which should grow into a great tree overshadowing all nations, in one narrow plot, that there it might be carefully tended and watered and cultivated, sheltered from harm, exposed to ripening influences, and in the end bring forth much fruit. Jewish bigotry indeed narrowed the blessing to Abram's natural descendants, but to the patriarch himself the promise was not so limited; to him in progressive revelation it was unfolded that all the world should share in the favour and reap the benefits of God's merciful condescension.

Many legends touching Abram's early life are found in the writings of Jew and Moslem, and possibly have some historical basis on which they were erected. The "Book of Jubilees" * tells how that from his early years he was filled with loathing for the vices of those among whom he lived. When only fourteen, he separated himself from his father, refusing to worship his idols, and praying to the great Creator to save him from being led astray by the evil practices of his countrymen. At his command, and reverencing his sanctity, the ravens refrained from devouring the seed that was sown in the fields ; more than this, he improved upon the practice of scattering seed broadcast over the ground, and invented a kind of drill, which was attached to the plough, and covered up the seeds as they were deposited in the soil. As he grew older, he remonstrated with his father upon the worship of idols, and showed the folly and wickedness of this practice. Terah assented to his words, but dared not openly avow his sentiments for fear of his relations, who would slay without scruple all who presumed to oppose the prevailing religion. Other legends tell how a wonderful star heralded his birth; and how Nimrod, the king of Babylon, fearing that one so favoured might hereafter rise to a dangerous eminence, required his father to surrender him to death. Terah substituted a slave's child for his own son, and thus Abram escaped. He was hidden for some years in a cave; on emerging from this, and for the first time beholding the heavens, he began to ask who had made all this wonderful When the sun arose, he fancied that bright orb must be the Creator, and prayed to it all day long; but when it set

scene.

2

The original is lost. An Ethiopic version was published by Dillmann in 1859, and a translation by Ewald in "Jahrbücher" ii. and iii. See also Rönsch, "Das Buch der Jubilaen."

2 Ap. Beer, "Leben Abrah."

"

he thought it could not have made all the world and yet itself be subject to extinction. The moon rose, and the stars shone out. "Surely," he cried, "the moon is the Lord of the Universe, and the stars are his ministers." But the moon sank, the stars faded, and the sun again appeared on the horizon. Then he said: 66 These celestial bodies could not have created the world; they all obey an invisible Ruler, to whom they owe their existence; and Him only henceforward will I supplicate, to Him alone will I bow." Abram's growth from infancy to boy、 hood was so rapid that his mother, who had been some short time separated, did not recognize him when she met him again, and could scarcely believe in his identity when he assured her that he was her son. "How is it possible,” she asked, “that thou hast so grown in this little while? "Ah, mother," answered Abram, “learn from this that there is an Almighty, everlasting God, who seeth all things and is Himself unseen, who is in heaven, and whose majesty filleth all the earth." "What!" cries the mother; 66 Is there any God save Nimrod ?" "Certainly," he says, "the God of heaven and earth, who is also the God of Nimrod. Go thou to Nimrod and tell him this." His mother carried this conversation to Terah, and Terah acquainted the king with this and other wonderful matters concerning his son. Nimrod was uneasy at this report, and sent a body of his warriors to arrest the youth. Abram prayed to the God of heaven, and Gabriel shrouded him suddenly in a cloud, and so terrified the warriors that they fled to Babylon, a journey of forty days, leaving their errand undone. They were followed by Abram riding on the angel's shoulders. Arrived at the city gates, the youth exclaimed with a loud voice: "The Eternal is the only true God; there is none like Him. He is the God of heaven, God of all gods, God of Nimrod himself. Bear record, all ye inhabitants of Babylon; I, Abram, worship Him, and Him alone." Informed of these circumstances Nimrod is sorely perplexed what to do; but at length he ordains a festival of seven days in which all his people are to come and worship him. Abram comes boldly before the king, lays hold of his throne and tosses it about, denouncing, in stern language, Nimrod's idolatry and infidelity. As he speaks, a wonderful thing happens: the idol temples in the city suddenly fall to the ground with a crash; Nimrod is seized with a death-like trance; all his courtiers are panic-stricken. On