Dear Dr Inman,

At pp. 11 and 81 of your new volume, the proof-sheets of which you were good enough to show me, you intimate that an earlier origin can be found for all Hebrew feasts and observances excepting the Sabbath. It would appear, from discoveries made and works published since you began to write, that you need not make even this exception. There are, I think, plain indications of a Sabbath among the Egyptians, and proofs of its observance by the Assyrians.

Dr G. G. Zerffi, in a note appended to Mr Tyssen's Origin of the Week* says—"Judging from the Egyptian mythology, we are justified in assuming that they had some correct notions of the division of time. Their eight gods of the first order point to an incarnation of the cosmical forces, or the planetary system. The twelve gods of the second order undoubtedly presided over the twelve months of the year; whilst the seven gods of the third order were to watch over the seven days of the week..... The Teutons have inherited the division, not only of the week in seven days, but also the names by which these days are called, from the Indians....." (Bohlen's Das alte Indien; Toth, by Dr Uhlemann; and Bunsen's Egypt's Place in History; Tacitus, Suidas, Pliny, and Amosis).

These, perhaps, are only what I have called them, indications of a Sabbath, since it is conceivable that a week of seven days might exist without one day being more sacred than another. A plainer indication may be found in the Hymn to Amen-Ka, which exists upon a hieratic papyrus, judged to be of the fourteenth century, B.C., and purporting to be only a copy of an earlier writing. I quote four lines, and call attention to the fourth:—

When we leave Egypt for Assyria, we pass from indication to proof. At p. 12 of George Smith's Assyrian Discoveries,** the author says—"In the year 1869 I 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 undertaken." More precise information as to these Sabbath-days is given by Rev. A. H Sayce, M.A., in Records of the Past, vol. I., p. 164, where the following words occur:—"The Babylonian year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, with an intercalary month every six years.... According to the lunar division, the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days were days of 'rest' on which certain works were forbidden."

The Assyrian legends tell of seven evil spirits who rebelled against the gods; of the goddess Ishtar descending to Hades, and passing through seven gates; of a deluge, the duration of which was seven days, &c., &c. Mr H. F. Talbot, F.R.S., speaks of the great degree of holiness which the Assyrians attributed to the number seven, and where that number was sacred, the seventh day could scarcely escape special honours. Why the number seven was sacred, or whether the Babylonian Sabbath was at first any more than an unlucky day, like the sailor's Friday, when it was sowing for the whirlwind to begin any enterprise, are other questions.

I am, yours faithfully,

GEORGE ST. CLAIR.

These observations of Mr St Clair deserve attention, for they show that, from an ancient period, a sixth and seventh day were holy in Egypt, although we cannot discover from the context whether they were reckoned after the first day of a year, a month, or a week. But this is of small importance, as I do not find evidence that the Jews borrowed any Egyptian ideas, even if they ever knew any. It is far more important to know, that in the Assyrian calendar the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the month were days of "rest," for all Biblical testimony points to the adoption of the Jewish Sabbath in the time of the second Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel—i.e., not very long after the Assyrians made their power felt in Palestine. When we consider the propensity which the Hebrews had to copy parts of the religion of those who conquered them, it is highly probable that some astute priest of the Jews adopted the idea of consecrating a seventh day, as their Mesopotamian adversaries had done, to the most high god Saturn; and as it was desirable to have some pretence for the introduction of the Sabbath, it was natural that it should be put under the same head as the new moon, and that stories should be invented, and gradually circulated, of the vast antiquity of the new institution. It is clear, from the Jewish history, that the Sabbath was not generally known amongst the common people until long after the return from Babylon. Had it been so, Ezra would not have thundered so energetically in its favour. The same remark applies to Nehemiah. I have elsewhere remarked that the Sabbath was unknown to David and Solomon, and may now add that any one who will read the episode in the history of Elijah, recorded 1 Kings xix. 7, 8, will see that this prophet could have known nothing, and the angel who spoke to him could have known no more, of the Mosaic Sabbath, inasmuch as the latter directs, and the former obeys, an order which must have involved a breaking of the "rest" of at least five, and possibly six, Sabbaths. The whole life, indeed, of Elijah shows a perfect ignorance of this so-called Mosaic institution.