doctrine. There are two ways of doctrine and of authority, the one of light, and the other of darkness; but great is the difference' of these two ways. Over one indeed are set the light bringing angels of God, and over the other the angels of Satan. And he is Lord for ever and ever, and Prince of the present time of iniquity. 19. The way of light then is of this sort: If any one is wishing to travel this way to the appointed place, he should be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given us to walk herein is of this sort: Thou shalt love Him that made thee; Thou shalt fear Him that fashioned thee; Thou shalt glorify Him that redeemed thee from death; Thou shalt not be joined with those who go in the way death; Thou shalt hate everything which is not pleasing to God; Thou shalt hate all hypocrisy ; of Thou shalt not forsake the commandments of the Lord; Thou shalt not exalt thyself, but shalt be lowly-minded in all things; Thou shalt not take to thyself glory; Thou shalt not take evil counsel against thy neighbour; Thou shalt not commit fornication; Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not be a corruptor of youth; Let not the Word of God be uttered by thee in impurity; Thou shalt not accept the person of any;" Rebuke any one for transgression; Be meek; Be quiet; Fear the words which thou hearest. Be not mindful of evil to thy brother. Be not of doubtful mind whether it shall be or not. Thou shalt not take thy name in vain. Thou shalt love thy neighbour more than thine enemy, thy own soul. Thou shalt not slay the child with destruction," nor again, shalt thou any of those things which promote salvation. For if concerning present or future things I should write to you," etc. For "difference," the text originally had "corruption." Sic; for, "thy soul to insolence." The corrector inserts at the beginning of this clause: "Thou shalt not take evil counsel." For "thy name," the corrector gives "the name of the Lord." That is, not procure abortion. kill that which is born. Thou shalt not withdraw thy hand from thy son or from thy daughter, but from childhood shalt thou teach them the fear of God. Be not covetous of what is thy neighbour's. Be not avaricious; nor be joined in thy soul with the haughty, but converse with the humble and righteous. Receive as good things the trials which befall thee, knowing that without God nothing happens. Be not of uncertain mind, nor loquacious. Be subject to masters, as a type of God, with modesty and fear. Thou shalt not give orders in bitterness to thy servant or to thy maiden, who trust in the same God, lest they should not fear that God who is above both, because he came not to call according to the person, but those for whom the Spirit has made preparation. Thou shalt communicate in all things with thy neighbour, and not say that they are thine own; for if in the incorruptible ye are partakers, how much rather in those which are subject to death. Thou shalt not be hasty with thy tongue, for the mouth is a snare of death. As far as thou canst, be pure in thy soul. Be not stretching out thy hands to receive, and contracting them to give. Thou shalt love as the pupil of thine eye every one who speaks to thee the word of the Lord. Be mindful of the day of judgment, day and night. And thou shalt seek out every day-either doing something by word, and going in order to exhort, and meditating in order to save a soul by thy word,-or by thy hands thou shalt work for the redemption of thy sins. Thou shalt not hesitate to give, nor murmur when thou givest. But thou knowest who is a good recompenser of reward. Thou shalt keep what thou hast received, neither adding nor taking away. To the end thou shalt hate evil; and thou shalt judge justly. Thou shalt not cause a division. Thou shalt pacify those who contend, bringing them together. Thou shalt confess thy sins. Thou shalt not attend to prayer with an evil conscience. 20. But the way of the Black one is full of crookedness and of cursing; for it is the way of death eternal' with punishment, wherein are what destroy their soul-idolatry, rashness, haughtiness of power, hypocrisy, double-heartedness, adultery, murder, rapine, boasting, transgressions, fraud, malice, self iCorrector: "which are corruptible." This defective sentence has been corrected thus: Thou shalt seek out every day the faces of the saints; either by word, and work, and labour; doing [something?] and going," etc. The passage is faulty. Hefele's text reads, And by word watching and going," etc. Dressel has, "or by word watching and going.” The ηδιαλογουκοπιωντι of the text seems to be for η δια λόγου κοπίων τι, and not κοπιώντι. The T is partially erased. *Corrector adds: "This is the way of light." 4 The text has αιωνια for αιωνίου. sufficiency, poisoning, irreverence," persecutors of the good, hating truth, loving falsehood, not knowing the reward of righteousness, not allied to good, not regarding the widow and orphan with just judgment, watching not for the fear of God, but for evil,-from whom far and distant are meekness and patience; loving vanity, following after a reward, not pitying the poor, not labouring for the wearied one; ready at reviling; not knowing him that made them; slayers of children, destroyers of the workmanship of God, turning away him that is needy, and oppressing him that is afflicted, advocates for the rich, lawless judges of the poor, sinners in all things. 21. It is well that he who has learned the judgments of the Lord, whatever are written, should walk in them. For he who does these things, in the kingdom of God shall be glorified: he who chooses those things shall perish with his works. Therefore (there is) a resurrection; therefore a reward. I pray you who are superiors, if you receive any counsel of my good-will, have with yourselves those to whom ye may do good; do not forsake them. The day is near wherein all things will perish with the Evil one. The Lord is near, and his reward. Again and again I pray you, be your own legislators; of your own good abide faithful counsellors; take from yourselves all hypocrisy; and may God, who rules over all the world, give to you wisdom, understanding, prudence, knowledge of his judgments, patience. Seek ye what the Lord seeks from you, and (so) do that ye may be found in the day of judgment. Now if there is any remembrance of good, remember me, meditating on these things, that both my desire and vigilance may turn out to some good. I pray you, asking your favour," while yet the good vessel is with you, fail not in any one of yourselves, but constantly seek these things, and fulfil every commandment; for it is worthy. Wherefore I was the more zealous to write to the best of my power. Farewell, children of love and peace, the Lord of glory and all grace be with your spirit. THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. Irreverence. Corrector adds Ov; i. e., "towards God." The preceding vices are arranged in a single column. * Literally: "asking grace." Or, "so long as the good vessel is with you;" i. e., “so long as you are in the body." Corrector adds: "in order to rejoice you." [We must omit the remarks promised in the first part, note y, J. S. L., Oct., 1863, p. 81. ED. J. S. L.] NEW SERIES.-VOL. V, NO. IX. I THE DECIPHERMENT OF CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS Ir seems from various indications that considerable scepticism still exists in many quarters in regard to the readings furnished by Rawlinson, Hincks, Oppert, and others, from the inscriptions from Western Asia, composed in the cuneiform character. The removal of this scepticism, and a rational conviction of the general trustworthiness of these readings, is what is specially aimed at in this paper and its successors. In applying the epithet cuneiform, or cuneatic, to the writing of the inscriptions in question, it is meant not that they are all compiled in the same language, but that they are all made up of signs formed of the same element-the wedge, nail, arrow-head, dagger, or swallow-tail, as it has been variously called. The great peculiarity of this kind of writing is the absence of curvature. The tapering, wedge-like form of the lines, seems to be a superadded elegance. Inscriptions have been found in which the taper is wanting, and others in which it is represented by cross-bars, like the head of a hammer." Evidently from its rigid and curveless character, this form of writing was specially, and, it is probable, purposely, adapted for being inscribed either on soft brick or stone. The taper form may have been suggested by observing that in practice a line thicker at one end came out more naturally than one uniformly thick. There are sufficient indications to shew that, like the hieroglyphical in Egypt, the cuneiform became ultimately, if it were not at first, a sacred character, reserved for occasions of state, royal proclamations, or dedicatory tablets and seals. We are told that Democritus wrote on the sacred letters of Babylon, and we find the wedge, the primary element, lying on an altar from Babylon, along with other sacred symbols. It is certain that another and cursive form of writing was in use along with the cuneiform; and rare a b Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, ii., pp. 179, 180. The oldest Chaldean legends are in characters in which the taper is yet wanting. Oppert, Expedition Scientifique, ii., p. 62. Layard, l. c., suggests as the means of forming the wedge, the angular corner of a square rod: Oppert, l. c., the double stroke of a chisel. It may be observed, that for the most part the narrow end of the lines is turned in the direction in which the eye and hand of the workman would move in forming the characters. For forming the marks on clay, moveable styles or wedge-like types were used. Such, made of stone, are often found in the mounds of Southern Chaldea. Loftus, Chaldea, p. 235. Taylor, in Jour. Asiatic Soc., xv., p. 410. Compare Oppert, Erped., ii., p. 63. "Nous avons découvert à Babylone des burins d'ivoire pourvus d'une point triangulaire, dont une seule taille devait fournir l'element du coin." Chesney observes (Euphrates Exped., ii., p. 629), "So exactly do the same letters resemble one another, that, when repeated, slight flaws or blemishes when they exist, are found in all." examples are said to have been found of a degenerate cuneiform, corresponding to the demotic of Egypt, and better adapted than the ordinary style for daily employment. In regard to the origination of the characters, it is now fully ascertained that, like the Egyptian hieroglyphics, they were at first pictorial, though, unlike the Egyptian, the pictures became generally unrecognizable. In some cases, however, the likeness to the object represented is still discernible; and it is found that in the oldest modes of writing, the signs present the most distinct traces of pictorial origin.4 While all the records with which we have to do have the straight line or wedge as their prime element, they are not all written in the same characters. Out of this element are formed more than one distinct alphabet or syllabarium, each appropriated, as was à priori to be expected, to a separate language. In the Persepolitan inscriptions, e. g., a glance is sufficient to shew that three different sets of characters, all cuneiform, are employed in different compartments or columns of the same tablet; and this threefoldness is a conspicuous feature in almost all the Persian monuments. The simplest in form, which has also the fewest signs, is usually called the first or Persian kind of cuneiform; that which is next above it in point of complexity and number is called the second or Median, rather, since progress has been made in decipherment, Scythian or Turanian species; and that which is the most marked by complexity and variety is called the third or Babylonian. It is the study of these trilingual tablets of the Achæmenians, set up in order to make their proclamations generally intelligible to their subjects, See Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, ii., pp. 164-166, 179-185. Rawlinson, Jour. Asiatic Soc., x., p. 31. Oppert, Rapport, p. 173. From the demotic cuneiform, we must, it would seem, distinguish the Aramæan or Phoenician writing, of which pretty numerous specimens have been found in Assyrian and Babylonian ruins, as at Abushadr (Bunsen's Phil. of Hist., ii., p. 361), on Assyrian weights (Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 601), and elsewhere. Cf. Levy, Phönizische Studien, ii., pp. 22 f. See in general Hincks's paper in Report of Brit. Assoc., 1857; and Oppert's Erped., ii., chap. v., pp. 59 ff, where the fullest illustrations have been given of the hieroglyphical origin of cuneiform writing. See also Rawlinson, Herod., i., pp. 442, 444; Ménant, Les Ecritures Cuneiformes, pp. 167 f.; Inscriptions Assyriennes, p. 20. The figures on the famous black stone of Shush are doubtless hieroglyphical. See Loftus, Chaldea, p. 419; cf. Chesney, Euph. Ex., ii., p. 628. This threefoldness must be understood as referring only to general appearance. It is now proved that two at least of the alphabets (the second and third species) employed in the Persian tablets are essentially identical, and have been derived from the same hieroglyphic system. See Oppert, Exped., ii., pp. 70 f. The same is probably true also of the other, though it has been attempted (as by Geisler, De Literatura Phoneticæ origine atque indole, pp. 19 f.) to prove that it is allied to the Phoenician, Indian, or Runic characters. "Precisely as at the present day, a governor of Baghdad, who wished to publish an edict for general information, would be obliged to employ three lan |