BOOK VI. mankind spoke an universally intelligible language, they; that is to say, by every rule of grammar, all mankind: they arrived, in the course of their journcying, at the plain of Shinar. Here, acting as one people or as a single community, they proceeded to build a city and a tower. But God miraculously confounded their language; that is to say, the language of the whole earth or of all mankind previously described as being one: and thus scattered them over the face of the globe: them, that is to say, still the all mankind, who had spoken originally a single language, and who mutually intelligible had travelled to Shinar'. Nothing can be more plain and unequivocal than the whole narrative. It proceeds step by step from the exordium to the conclusion. But, in so doing, it shews, that the architects of Babel were all mankind; not a single tribe or people, which is suddenly brought forward to our notice.

IV. Here however it may be asked, If the Ark rested upon a mountain in Armenia, how could all mankind reach Babylon by a journey from the east? To this question it might be amply sufficient to reply, that, as Berosus positively declares the founders of that great city to have travelled from Armenia by a circuitous route, and as there is no more difficulty in ascribing such a route to all mankind collectively than to a single tribe particularly it might be sufficient to reply, that, when the children of Noah left mount Ararat, they first journeyed eastward; and afterwards, wheeling in circle, arrived in the plain of Shinar by a westward progress. Such an answer would certainly be plausible, because it might seem to be supported by the pagan testimony of Berosus: for, if the founders of Babel travelled from Armenia in a circle, as he says they did, and as the very geography of the country shews they must have done; then of course, by whatever route they might arrive in the plain of Shinar, their journey thither could not have been directly from the north. Here therefore I think Mr. Penn wrong in saying, that Mr. Bryant's theory rests mainly on the supposed arrival of a people from the east: for such, in exact accordance with Berosus, might equally have been the progress of those who built the tower,

• Such is the sense, which Simon rightly ascribes to the passage: To proficisci eorum, id est omnis terræ.

whether they comprized all mankind or were confined to a single tribe. CHAP. I. But, as this imagined oriental progress has been the grand substratum of another hypothesis, though assuredly not of that which we have been considering; and, as Mr. Penn is clearly right in his proposed version of the phrase, so generally rendered and understood from the east: I shall proceed to point out, what seems to have been the actual route of the Noachide when they descended from the heights of Armenia; noticing by the way the theory, to which I have just alluded.

From the supposed declaration that the founders of Babel travelled thither in a westerly direction, and from the undoubted circumstance that this journey is the first recorded movement after the deluge, Dr. Shuckford and more recently Mr. Wilford have argued, that the Ark could not have rested upon the mountains of Armenia, but that the Ararat of Moses is to be sought far to the east of Babylon. Here, accordingly, it is supposed to be found: and the high land at the source of the Ganges, which coincides geographically with the poetical Meru, and which is constantly said by the natives to have received the ark of Satyavrata, is determined to be the true scriptural Ararat.

It is superfluous on the present occasion to repeat the arguments, by which I have already shewn that the Ararat of Moses must certainly be placed in the land of Armenia, however we may be able to reconcile such a situation with the progress of the early postdiluvians': I have rather to point out, on how very sandy a foundation that hypothesis rests, which would argue the remote oriental scite of Ararat from the circumstance of a westerly journey to Babylon. Even allowing such a journey to have taken place, the concession would be rather adverse than favourable to the theory now before us: for, since Berosus declares from the old Chaldèan records that the founders of the tower reached the plain of Shinar by a circular route; it is obvious, that, if they had really set out from the Indian Meru, they must have approached the plain, not from the east, but either from the north or the south. I am however fully persuaded with Mr. Penn, that this oriental journey never had any existence, and that it has entirely origi

' Vide supra book ii. c. 1. § IV,

BOOK VI. nated from a very commonly received erroneous translation. The word rendered the east springs from a root, which denotes priority either of place or of time: and it came to signify the east, because by the ancients that quarter was deemed the front or fore part of the world. But, agreeably to its origin, it does not merely signify the east: it equally conveys the idea of priority in point of time. Accordingly, the very same word is in other passages rightly translated from the beginning or at the first, not from the east: and, as Mr. Penn has excellently shewn, this is by no means the only place, in which the faulty rendering from the east has been thoughtlessly adopted from the Greek interpreters. These indeed, by a mistranslation, bring the builders of the tower from the east: and, as their error has been received into more than one modern version, so it has formed the basis of more than one speculative hypothesis. But, among the ancients, we find a very different sense ascribed to the original expression. The old Chaldee Paraphrase of Onkelos, the Targum of Jerusalem, Aquila, and Jerome, all agree to render it in the beginning or at the first: and the Jewish historian Josephus, while he is wholly silent respecting any oriental migration, simply intimates, that, when the posterity of Noah quitted the heights of Armenia, the place where they first established themselves was the plain of Shinar'. Hence, I think, 'we may safely pronounce, that the passage ought to be translated as follows. And the whole world was of one lip and of one mode of speech. And it came to pass, when they FIRST journeyed, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar.

This version, when taken in connection with the general preceding context, gives us a clear and regular account of the most early postdiluvian transactions. And that account serves finally to demonstrate the errone. ousness of Mr. Bryant's system: that there were two dispersions of mankind; the one general and shortly after the deluge, the other particular and immediately after the frustrated attempt at Babel. First, the family of Noah quit the Ark on the summit of mount Ararat. Next, they remain, during a certain period, in the land of Armenia; until their numbers have sufficiently increased, and the lower grounds are sufficiently dried, to encou

• His expression is prov. Ant. Jud. lib. i. c. 5.

rage or require an emigration. Then, while they as yet all speak the same CHAP. I. language, they undertake their first journey in one great body or community. This journey brings them to the plain of Shinar. Here they make a halt, with a firm determination not to separate from each other, but jointly to found a single universal empire. For that purpose; they proceed to build a city and a pyramidal temple. But, their plan being in direct and known contradiction to the divine purpose, God miraculously confounds their speech, so that they are no longer intelligible to each other: and the consequence is, that from the centrical point of Babel they are scattered over the face of the whole earth.

Respecting the particular route by which they arrived in the plain of Shinar, Moses then is wholly silent: but, as Berosus declares it to have been circuitous or circular, and as there seems to be no reason why we should reject his testimony, it will not be foreign to the present discussion if we make some inquiries into the matter.

Mr. Penn, with his usual felicity, and guided only by a geographical view of the country, supposes their line of march to have been directed by the course of the great river Euphrates. This mighty stream, rising in the mountains of Armenia, flows originally in a westerly direction: then it turns to the south: and at length, bending eastward, it reaches Babylon from the north-west. Its progress therefore is circuitous: and, as the approach to Shinar from Armenia would be most easily and naturally effected by following its winding course; so, in that case, the route of the emigrants would minutely correspond with the description given of it by Berosus.

Such is Mr. Penn's very happy conjecture: but there are some particulars, which seem almost to convert it to a moral certainty.

The entire tenor of the argument, which pervades the present work, tends to establish the position, that the idolatry of the whole world emanated fromBabylon. But this circumstance necessarily requires us to suppose, that the builders of the tower were well acquainted with the course of their sacred river Euphrates: because one of the most prominent features of the mythology framed by them is the descent of the holy stream from the mountain of the floating Moon. Now, had they reached Babylon by the opposite circuit which Mr. Bryant ascribes to the Cuthites in order that he

BOOK VI. may bring them from the east, they would entirely have left the Euphrates? and the necessary consequence would have been a total ignorance of its source; for, judging by the direction of its current as it approaches the plain of Shinar, they would have been inclined conjecturally to place its fountains rather in the west than in the north. They did however know, that it arose in Armenia; because they could not have framed their mythologic system without such knowledge: and they could not have attained this knowledge, unless they had pursued its course during their emigration to Babylon. Hence we seem obliged to conclude with Mr. Penn, that their line of march was along the circuitous valley of the Euphrates, which would conduct them by easy steps to the plain of Shinar.

There is yet another particular, though of a more conjectural nature; which, if it possess any solidity, will again bring us to the very same conclusion. That great linguist, Sir William Jones, has ascertained, that Sanscrit was one of the three primeval languages which originated in the first postdiluvian empire of Iran; an empire, which must certainly be identified with the Babylonic empire of Nimrod. Now the real eastern name, which the Greeks have thought proper to express Euphrates, is well known to be Phrat: and, accordingly, it is so written by Moses. But, in the Sanscrit, Vratta, pronounced Vrat', denotes a circle. Hence it is not unreasonable to conjecture, that the holy stream of the Babylonians was called Phrat or Vrat from the well-ascertained form of its course; the river Phrat being equivalent to the river of the circle: and hence I think it far from impossible, that Berosus actually described his forefathers. as travelling from Armenia by the Phrat; that by this he meant the river, which bore a name expressive of its course; that his Greek translator, knowing the import of the word and mistaking a proper for a common name, accurately enough rendered it perix or circularly; and that thus the founders of the tower are said in the Greek version of Berosus to have travelled circularly, while Berosus himself had really exhibited them as travelling along the course of the Phrat or Vrat.

'In the pronunciation of Sanscrit words, the final a is quicscent, like the unaccented final e of the French. See Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 173.