n_as: the number of days being really the only point on which
the two accounts startle us by their agreement.

That Noah's ark rested upon the mountain of Ararat, and that Ararat
may admit of a Persian etymology, is nothing to the point. The
etymology itself is ingenious, but no more. The same remark applies to
all the rest of Dr. Spiegel's arguments. Thraetaona, who has before
been compared to Noah, divided his land among his three sons, and gave
Iran to the youngest, an injustice which exasperated his brothers, who
murdered him. Now it is true that Noah, too, had three sons, but here
the similarity ends; for that Terach had three sons, and that one of
them only, Abram, took possession of the land of promise, and that of
the two sons of Isaac, the youngest became the heir, is again of no
consequence for our immediate purpose, though it may remind Dr.
Spiegel and others of the history of Thraetaona. We agree with Dr.
Spiegel, that Zoroaster's character resembles most closely the true
Semitic notion of a prophet. He is considered worthy of personal
intercourse with Ormuzd; he receives from Ormuzd every word, though
not, as Dr. Spiegel says, every letter of the law. But if Zoroaster
was a real character, so was Abraham, and their being like each other
proves in no way that they lived in the same place, or at the same
time, or that they borrowed aught one from the other. What Dr. Spiegel
says of the Persian name of the Deity, Ahura, is very doubtful. Ahura,
he says, as well as ahu, means lord, and must be traced back to the
root ah, the Sanskrit as, which means to be, so that Ahura would
signify the same as Jahve, he who is. The root 'as' no doubt means to
be, but it has that meaning because it originally meant to breathe.
From it, in its original sense of breathing, the Hindus formed asu,
breath, and asura, the name of God, whether it meant the breathing
one, or the giver of breath. This asura became in Zend ahura, and if
it assumed the general meaning of Lord, this is as much a secondary
meaning as the meaning of demon or evil spirit, which asura assumed in
the later Sanskrit of the Brahma_n_as.

After this, Dr. Spiegel proceeds to sum up his evidence. He has no
more to say, but he believes that he has proved the following points:
a very early intercourse between Semitic and Aryan nations; a common
belief shared by both in a paradise situated near the sources of the
Oxus and Jaxartes; the dwelling together of Abraham an