“I send the above as promised, The professed aversion of the Jews for foreign customs seems strangely at variance with their practice, as seen, e.g., in their names for the divisions of the heavenly hosts; the words ‘Legion and Sistra (castra) are evidently taken from the Roman army. Four Chief Spirits or Archangels are occasionally mentioned, as in Pirke Eliezer and Henoch, cf. 48, 1. Others make their number seven, as Tobit 12, 5; Revel. 2, 4–3, 1–4, 5. The angelic doings are partly copied from the usages of the Jewish Temple, hence the Jerusalem Targum renders Exod. 14, 24. ‘It happened in the morning watch, the hour when the heavenly host sing praises before God’—comp.: Luke 2, 13,—and the same reason is applied by the Targumist for the sudden exit of the angel in Genes. 32, 26. One may perhaps, however, be induced to ask whether (as in the case of Euthyphron in the Platonic dialogue) a better cause for departure might not be found in the inconvenience of remaining!
“Though I have Haug’s version of the Gathas, I am far from able to decipher the grounds of difference between him and Spiegel. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites, a volume entitled Erân by Dr. Spiegel contains, among other Essays, one entitled Avesta and Veda, or the relation of Iran and India, and another Avesta and Genesis, or the relation of Iran to the Semites. Weber’s Morische Skizzen also contains interesting matter on similar subjects. We were speaking about the magical significance of names. See as to this Origen against Celsus, 1–24; Diod. Sicul, 1–22; Iamblicus de Myst, 2, 4, 5.
“Socrates himself appears superstitiously apprehensive about the use of divine names in the Philebus 1, 2 and the Cratylus 400e. The suppression of it among the Jews, (for instance in the Septuagint, where Κυριος is substituted for Jehovah, and Sirach, Ch. 23, 9) express the same feeling.
“We were talking of the original religion of Persia. You, of course, recollect the passage on this subject in the first book of Herodotus, Ch. 131, and Strabo 15, see 13, p. 732 Casaub. The practice of prohibiting selfish prayer mentioned in the next following chapter in Herodotus, is remarkable.
“I hope that in the above rigmarole a grain of useful matter may be found. Mrs. Mackay is, I am glad to say, better to-day.
“I remain, sincerely yours,
“R. W. Mackay.
“20th February, 1865,
“41, Hamilton Terrace, N.W.”
Another early acquaintance of mine in London was Lady Byron, the widow of the poet. I called on her one day, having received from her a kind note begging me to do so as she was unable to leave her house to come to me. She had been exceedingly kind in procuring for me valuable letters of introduction from Sir Moses Montefiore and others, which had been very useful to me in my long wanderings.