ld know that he can expect
no mercy; nay, he should himself wish for no mercy, but invite the
heaviest artillery against the floating battery which he has launched
into the troubled waters of Biblical criticism. If he feels that his
case is not strong enough, the wisest plan surely is to wait, to
accumulate new strength if possible, or, if no new evidence is
forthcoming, to acknowledge openly that there is no case.

M. Breal--who, in his interesting Essay 'Hercule et Cacus,' has lately
treated the same problem, the influence of Persian ideas on the
writers of the Old Testament--gives an excellent example of how a case
of this kind should be argued. He begins with the apocryphal books,
and he shows that the name of an evil spirit like Asmodeus, which
occurs in Tobit, could be borrowed from Persia only. It is a name
inexplicable in Hebrew, and it represents very closely the Parsi
Eshem-dev, the Zend Aeshma daeva, the spirit of concupiscence,
mentioned several times in the Avesta (Vendidad, c. 10), as one of the
devs, or evil spirits. Now this is the kind of evidence we want for
the Old Testament. We can easily discover a French word in English,
nor is it difficult to tell a Persian word in Hebrew. Are there any
Persian words in Genesis, words of the same kind as Asmodeus in Tobit?
No such evidence has been brought forward, and the only words we can
think of which, if not Persian, may be considered of Aryan origin, are
the names of such rivers as Tigris and Euphrates; and of countries
such as Ophir and Havilah among the descendants of Shem, Javan,
Meshech, and others among the descendants of Japhet. These names are
probably foreign names, and as such naturally mentioned by the author
of Genesis in their foreign form. If there are other words of Aryan or
Iranian origin in Genesis, they ought to have occupied the most
prominent place in Dr. Spiegel's pleading.

We now proceed, and we are again quite willing to admit that, even
without the presence of Persian words, the presence of Persian ideas
might be detected by careful analysis. No doubt this is a much more
delicate process, yet, as we can discover Jewish and Christian ideas
in the Koran, there ought to be no insurmountable difficulty in
pointing out any Persian ingredients in Genesis, however disguised and
assimilated. Only, before we look for such ideas, it is necessary to
show the channel through which they could possibly have flowed either
from the Avesta into Gene