[290] St. Jerome in the beginning of his commentary on the gospel of St. Matthew, pertinently observes in this connection: “Notandum est ... nullam sanctarum assumi mulierum sed eas quas Scriptura reprehendit: ut que propter peccatores venerat, de peccatoribus nascens, omnium peccata deleret. Unde et in consequentibus Ruth Moabitis ponitur et Bethsabee uxor Uriæ.”
[291] Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, p. 147 (London, 1822).
[292] Cf. The Language of the Hittites in The Times Literary Supplement, p. 180 (London, April 3, 1919).
[293] When the speech of the Hittites ceased to be a living tongue cannot even be surmised. St. Paul heard it in Lystra of Lycaonia, but how much later it may have continued to be spoken in certain other parts of Asia Minor cannot now be determined. As a people they doubtless long survived and, although they were gradually absorbed by neighboring races, “it is believed that some of them still exist, with their early distinctive characteristics, among the hills of the anti-Taurus range.”
We are likewise in ignorance as to when the languages of Egypt and Babylonia gave place to those of their conquerors. According to Sayce “the Egyptian hieroglyphics were still written and read in the time of Decius, the cuneiform characters of Babylon were employed in the age of Domitian.” The Ancient Empires of the East, p. ix (New York, 1886).
[294] According to recent investigations this was probably what is now known as the Wady el ’Arish and not the Nile, as usually supposed.
[295] Genesis xii: 5.
[296] Sayce’s Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, p. 410 (London, 1898). Lucius Ampelius writing in his Liber Memorialis, Cap. II, of the origin of the constellations, refers to a more extraordinary legend in connection with the Euphrates. “Pisces ideo pisces quia bello Gigantum Venus perturbata in piscem se transfiguravit. Nam dicitur et in Euphrate fluvio ovum piscis in ora flumimis columba adsedisse dies plurimos et exclusisse deam benignam et misericordem hominibus ad bonam vitam. Utrique memoriæ causa pisces inter sidera locati.”
[297] For an interesting report on the excavations made at Djerabis on behalf of the British Museum, see the beautifully illustrated monograph Carchemish (by D. G. Hogarth, London, 1915).
[298] It is to this legend that is due the Mussulman name—Nimroud Dagh—the Mountain of Nimrod—of the elevation on which stands the citadel of Urfa.