The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-02-23

months were at an early period dlvlded
into periods of seven days each" He
adds: -Four years ago, Mr.. George Smith
drew attention to the fact that the 7th,
18th, 21st, and 2sth days of the month
were termed Suluna, or rest, on which
certain works were forbidden to be done
and that the expression day of rest was
but the Assyrian translation of an older
Accadian equivalent, which signiied dies
nefastats'" These records have been
traced back at least thousand years be-
fore the reign of Assur-bani-pal (Sarda-
napalus) (673-626 B. O., and some As
syriologists believe them to be as old as
1000 B.
Mr.. George Smith, in his Assyrian
Discoveries" p. II, speaks of table
found by him in Nineveh, which he de-
scribes as follows:
In 1869 discovered, among other things, a
curious religious calendar of the Assyrians in
which every month is divided into four weeks,
and the seventh days, or 'Sabbaths,' are marked
out as days on which no work should be under
taken"
The Rev. James Johnston, of London,
the writer of the article in the Catholic
Presbyterian january, proceeds:
Mr. Smith also found what Mr. Sayce thus
describes =" A hemerology of the month of the
intercalatory Elul, Autographed in the fourth
volume of the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western
Asia, gives what we may call a saints calendar
Tor the month, with notes upon the religious
duties required from the king on each day.
The memorandum attached to the seventh day
translate as follows - The seventh day, the
festival of Merodach and Tirpanitu; a holy day
Sabbath for the ruler of great nations. Sodden
flesh (andD cooked fruit he may not eat. His
clothes he may not change. (New) garments
he may not put on. Sacrifices he may not offer
The king his chariot may not drive. In royal
fashion he may not legislate. place of assem-
bly, for the judge he may not establish. Medi-
cines for his ailments of body he may not apply
To make measured square it is suitable.
During the ensuing night, in the presence of
Merodach and Istar, the king. should erect his
altar, make sacrifice, and, lifting up his hand,
worship in the high place of the god"
Perhaps the most striking and interesting of
all the discoveries on this subject is that made
by Mr.. Boscawen who found the very name
" Sabbath under the Accadian form. " Sabattu {"
the most ancient language yet discovered ;
and the nature of that day is described by the
most felicitous expression that could well be
chosen. Mr.. Boscawen has pointed out to
me, says Professor Sayce, that it occurs in
the form Sabattu,' in w. A. l., II. 80, 16, where
1t is explained as day of rest for the heart"
These are only a few of the references
to the subject in the Assyrian tablets.
What are we to think of them? They
prove that Accadian (the oldest race at
Babylon) and Shemite alike knew of the
Sabbath rest from the beginning, and
that it was no newly invented precept for
the Sinaitic tables.
The passage which we have described
as saints calendar for the month, and
prescribing the religious duties of the
king on the Sabbath, is from tablet be-
longing to the seventh century (Sardana
palus), and shows, as Mr.. Johnston points
out, that in Nineveh as in Jerusalem
there were Pharisees who had refined on
the original law for the observance of the
Sabbath. A man is prohibited to change
his raiment on the Sabbath, and even the
taking of physic on that day is forbidden.
Who would have supposed that in
Nineveh in the seventh century B. c., in
the reign of Sardanapalus, the Sabbath
day was observed with more than Jewish
strictness2 Such is modern science; pull
ing down and rebuilding on stronger
foundations the beliefs that we derive
from the Bible. 1t occurs to us that
these discoveries about the rigorous OBJ
servance of the Sabbath at Nineveh throw
a side-hght on the Book of Jonah But
one thing is established: the Sabbath is
one of the oldest ideas with which the
primitive races of Asia were acquainted.
1t blends with the shadows of Nimrod
and the Tower of Babel.
1t was reserved for sciolists and little
whipper-snappers in theology in the close
of this nineteenth century to discover that
the Seventh Day Rest was a provincial
and 'ephemeral institution.
THERE WAS a mistake of 1900 years in