informed, in one of the books that bears his name, that Esdras was the wisest of his cotemporaries, and therefore a very fit and probable person to write books out of old legends. 1 Multa in Hebraicis et Græcis codicibus vitia esse ostendimus. Malta mendacia in rebus minutis, eorum pars uliqua non exigua nostra editione vulgata extat.---Marian pr. edit. vulg. cap. 21. If the books of the Old Testament were composed at so late a period, no wonder then that we find all the mysterious part of them so much like the religion of the ancients, and particularly of the Babylonians, and the historical part made up of heterogeneous matters, which in our days, unassisted by any profane writer of that age, we can make nothing of. I shall mention a few of the most striking points of resemblance between the Jewish and other mysteries. Abraham, the most famous of their patriarchs, has ever been celebrated in India. This they seem to have brought from their native country, Arabia. We have already noticed, that their account of the creation is exactly copied from Zoroaster, who says, that the world was made in six periods of time, called by him the thousands of God and of light, meaning the six summer months; in the first, God made the heavens; in the second, the waters; in the third, the earth; in the fourth, trees; in the fifth, animals; and in the sixth, man. The Etrurians and the Hindoos have very similar traditions of the highest antiquity, which, though they were emblems at first perfectly understood, astronomers afterwards converted them into periods, comprehending as many years as was required for different revolutions of the planetary system.