"
[38] See ch. xxiii.
[39] See chs. xxvi., xxvii., xxviii.
[40] These idols, one of their principal exports, are found wherever the
Phoenicians traded.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HEBREWS
ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE
=The Bible.=--The Jews united all their sacred books into a single
aggregation which we call by a Greek name the Bible, that is to say,
the Book. It is the Book par excellence. The sacred book of the Jews
became also the sacred book of the Christians. The Bible is at the
same time the history of the Jewish nation, and all that we know of
the sacred people we owe to the sacred books.
=The Hebrews.=--When the Semites had descended from the mountains of
Armenia into the plains of the Euphrates, one of their tribes, at the
time of the first Chaldean empire, withdrew to the west, crossed the
Euphrates, the desert, and Syria and came to the country of the Jordan
beyond Phoenicia. This tribe was called the Hebrews, that is to say,
the people from beyond the river. Like the majority of the Semites
they were a race of nomadic shepherds. They did not till the soil and
had no houses; they moved from place to place with their herds of
cattle, sheep, and camels, seeking pasturage and living in tents as
the Arabs of the desert do to this day.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131