We have also the Jewish and Mussulman traditions, as represented chiefly in the Talmud and the Koran. It is in the former class-those presented to us by the Pagan historians— that the migration of Abraham assumes its most purely secular aspect. They describe him as a great man of the East, well read in the stars, or as a conquering prince who swept all before him on his way to Palestine. These characteristics, remote as they are from our common view, have nevertheless their point of contact with the Biblical account, which, simple as it is, implies more than it states.

In the darkness of this distant past, the most distinct images we can now hope to recall are those of the place and scene of the event. Where was 'Ur of the Chaldees?'

Ur of the
Chaldees.

It

would seem at first sight as if this, the most solid footing on which we could rely, shifted beneath our feet so rapidly as to deprive us of any standing ground whatever. The name itself of Chasdim' or 'Chaldæa' has, in the progress of centuries, descended like a landslip from the northern Armenian mountains, to which it originally belonged, into the southern limits of Mesopotamia, which claimed it in after times. This is the first source of confusion. Is it the northern or southern, the ancient or the more recent Chaldæa, of which we are speaking? But, besides this, the name of Ur also seems to have been sown broadcast over the whole region. One is pointed out near Nisibis, another near Nineveh; a third and fourth have lately been found in the neighbourhood of Babylon. It is perhaps the most probable solution that the name originally meant (as the Septuagint translators have rendered it) a country rather than a place. But no arguments advanced, even by the high authority of recent discoverers, seem as yet sufficiently established to disturb the old and general tradition which fixes the chief centre of the early movements of the tribe of Abraham at the place variously known as Orfa, Roha, Orchoe, Callirrhoe, Chaldæopolis, Edessa, Antioch of the far East, Erech, 2 Ur;

'Ur Chasdim,' i.e. 'Ur of the people

' of Chesed,' as it is expressed in the original.

2 Bayer, Historia Osrhoena et Edes. sena, 3.

and, were it more in doubt than it is, the singular ecclesiastical position occupied by this city of many names calls for a few words in passing.

Orfa.

In Christian times it was celebrated as the capital of Abgarus, Agbarus, or Akbar, who was supposed to have received the traditional portrait and letter of our Saviour,' and thus became the first Christian king. Gradually it was invested with a sacred pre-eminence, as the cradle, the university, the metropolis of the Christianity of the remote East. Within its walls lived and died and is buried the chief saint of the Syrian Church, Ephrem, Deacon of Edessa. In its neighbourhood, in strange conformity with its earliest history, wandered a race of hermits, not monastic or cœnobitic, but nomadic and pastoral, who took to the desert life, and almost literally grazed like sheep on the desert herbage.2 In later times, yet again, it became the seat of a Christian principality under the chiefs of the First Crusade. But whilst these latter glories of Edessa are gathered from books, the stories of Abraham alone still live in the mouths of the Arab inhabitants of Orfa, and in the peculiarities of its remarkable situation. The city lies on the edge of one of the bare, rugged spurs

which descend from the mountains of Armenia into the Assyrian plains,3 in the cultivated land, which, as lying under those mountains, is called Padan-Aram. Two physical features must have secured it, from the earliest times, as a nucleus for the civilisation of those regions. One is a high-crested crag, the natural fortification of the present citadel, doubly defended by a trench of immense depth, cut out of the living rock behind it. The other is an abundant spring, issuing in a pool of trans. parent clearness, and embosomed in a mass of luxuriant verdure, which, amidst the dull brown desert all around, makes, and must always have made, this spot an oasis, a paradise, in

1A well was shown in Pococke's time (Travels, i. 160), in which the messenger, attacked by thieves, dropped the letter, which gave the spring a miraculous character.

2 Tillemont, S. Ephrem, caph. 16, 17.

3 Oliver (Voyage à Syrie, iv. 329) gives a good description of the several zones of Mesopotamia.

* At times it swells into a flood, and is hence called Daizon or Scirtus ('the leaper'). Bayer, 14.

the Chaldæan wilderness. Round this sacred pool, 'The 'Beautiful Spring,' 'Callirrhoe,' as it was called by the Greek writers, gather the modern traditions of the Patriarch. Hard by, amidst its cypresses, is the mosque on the spot where he is said to have offered his first prayer: the cool spring itself burst forth in the midst of the fiery furnace1 which the infidels had kindled to burn him; its sacred fish, swarming by thousands and thousands, from their long continued preservation, are cherished by the faithful as under his special patronage; the two Corinthian columns which stand on the crag above are made to commemorate his deliverance. In the first centuries of the Christian era we know that other memorials of the Patriarchal age were pointed out. The year of Abraham was long adopted in Edessa as the epoch of its dates. Josephus speaks of the sepulchre of Haran, still shown in his time at Ur: Eusebius3 speaks of the tent which Jacob inhabited whilst feeding the flocks of Laban, as preserved till it was accidentally burnt by lightning in the second century. But, apart from all such transitory and doubtful reminiscences as these, we may well believe that the high rock, the clear spring, the burst of verdure, must have as truly made this (such might be a possible interpretation of the name) the light of the race of 'Arphaxad' (Ur Chasdim), as the like circumstance made Damascus 'the eye of the East;' and amongst the countless sepulchres which fill the rocky hill behind the city, some may reach back to the earliest times of human habitation and interment.

From this spot, invested with a tender attractiveness from which even the passing traveller 5 reluctantly tears himself away, we may believe that the family of Abraham were called. Was it, as according to Josephus, the grief of Terah over the untimely death of Haran? Was it, as according to the

6

tradition followed by Stephen, that the higher call had already come to Abraham ? We know not. We are told only that they went southward: they went upon the track which Chaldæans, and Medes, and Persians, and Curds, and Tartars, afterwards in long succession followed, as if towards the rich plains of Nineveh or of Babylon.

One day's journey from Ur, if Orfa be Ur, was the spot which they chose for their encampment 2-Haran, Charran, Carrhæ. That it was a place of note may be gathered Haran. from its long continued name and fame in later days. As the sanctuary of the Moon goddess it was, far into the Roman Empire, regarded as the centre of Eastern Paganism, in rivalry to Edessa, the centre of Eastern Christendom. It was the scene, too, of the memorable defeat of Crassus. But no modern traveller, up to the present time, has left a written account of this world-old place. There is hardly anything to tell us why it was fixed upon, either as the scene of that fierce conflict, or as the scene of the Patriarchal settlement. Only we observe that it is the point of divergence between the great 3 caravan routes towards the various fords of the Euphrates on the one hand, and the Tigris on the other; and therefore must have had some marked features to make it a fitting encampment both for Roman general and Chaldæan Patriarch. Beside the settlement, too, were the wells, round which for the next generations one large portion of the tribe of Terah continue to linger; and the settlers in the distant west are described as still retaining their affection for the ancient sanctuary, where the father of their race was buried, and whence they sought, according to the true Arabian usage, their own kinswomen and cousins in marriage.

4

ing notice of Orfa and Haran, see Philosophy and Truth, by the Rev. S. C. Malan, M.A., pp. 87-89, 9-395.

Ritter, vii. 296. As such it is mentioned in Ezekiel xxvii. 23.

Nieb. Trav. ii. 410. Gen. xxix. 2. 5 Gen. xi. 31; xxix. 4. Ewald, Geschichte, i. 413.

Passage of the

But, for the highest spirit of the Patriarchal family, Haran could not be a permanent abiding-place. 'The great river,' 'the river,' as his descendants called it, the river Euphrates, rolled its vast boundary of waters between Euphrates. him and the remote country to which his steps were bent. Two days' journey brought him to the high chalk cliffs which overlook the wide western desert. Broad and strong lay the great stream beneath and between. He crossed over it, probably near the same point where it is still forded.1 He crossed it, and became (such at least was one interpretation put upon the word) Abraham, 'the Hebrew,' the man who had crossed 2 the river flood-the man who came from beyond the Euphrates.

Damascus.

For seven days' journey 3 or more, the caravan would advance along what is still the main desert road to Syria. Nothing is said in history of their route. It is but an etymological legend which connects Aleppo 4 with the herds of the Patriarch's pastoral tribe. They neared the range of the Lebanon which screen the Holy Land from their view; and underneath its shade they rested, for the last time, in Damascus.5 It is curious that whilst the connection of Abraham with this most ancient of cities is almost entirely derived from extraneous sources, it is yet sufficiently confirmed by the Sacred narrative to be worthy of credit. 'Abraham,' we are told, 'was king of Damascus.'6 He had crossed the desert with his tribe, as not many years afterwards came Chedorlaomer and the kings of the East; and, as they descended on the green oasis of Siddim, so this earlier conqueror established himself in the green oasis of Damascus, the likeness, on a larger scale, of his own native Ur. In later ages his name was still honoured in the region; and a spot pointed out

1 Zeugma, the ancient passage, was a little west of the present passage at Birs. Oliver (iv. 215) compares it in size and rapidity to the Rhône.

LXX. Gen. xiv. 13, ò meрáτηs. Renan, Langues Sémitiques, i. 108.

3

Gen. xxxi. 23. Ritter, West Asia, vii. 296.

'Haleb,' the milk of Abraham's cow. See the legend in Porter's Handbook of Syria, 613.

Compare the descent of the Aramæans on Damascus from Kir in Armenia, Amos ix. 7.

* Justin, xxxvi. 2. Nicolaus of Damascus (Jos. Ant. i. 7, § 2). See Appendix I.