a purer creed by the Jacobite
and Nestorian bishops. [60] The liberty of choice was presented to the
tribes: each Arab was free to elect or to compose his private religion:
and the rude superstition of his house was mingled with the sublime
theology of saints and philosophers. A fundamental article of faith was
inculcated by the consent of the learned strangers; the existence of one
supreme God who is exalted above the powers of heaven and earth, but who
has often revealed himself to mankind by the ministry of his angels
and prophets, and whose grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable
miracles, the order of nature. The most rational of the Arabs
acknowledged his power, though they neglected his worship; [61] and it
was habit rather than conviction that still attached them to the relics
of idolatry. The Jews and Christians were the people of the Book; the
Bible was already translated into the Arabic language, [62] and the
volume of the Old Testament was accepted by the concord of these
implacable enemies. In the story of the Hebrew patriarchs, the Arabs
were pleased to discover the fathers of their nation. They applauded the
birth and promises of Ismael; revered the faith and virtue of Abraham;
traced his pedigree and their own to the creation of the first man, and
imbibed, with equal credulity, the prodigies of the holy text, and the
dreams and traditions of the Jewish rabbis.

[Footnote 55: Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 142-145) has cast
on their religion the curious but superficial glance of a Greek. Their
astronomy would be far more valuable: they had looked through the
telescope of reason, since they could doubt whether the sun were in the
number of the planets or of the fixed stars.]

[Footnote 56: Simplicius, (who quotes Porphyry,) de Coelo, l. ii. com.
xlvi p. 123, lin. 18, apud Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 474, who doubts
the fact, because it is adverse to his systems. The earliest date of
the Chaldaean observations is the year 2234 before Christ. After the
conquest of Babylon by Alexander, they were communicated at the request
of Aristotle, to the astronomer Hipparchus. What a moment in the annals
of science!]

[Footnote 57: Pocock, (Specimen, p. 138-146,) Hottinger, (Hist. Orient.
p. 162-203,) Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, p. 124, 128, &c.,)
D'Herbelot, (Sabi, p. 725, 726,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p.
14, 15,) rather excite than gratify our curiosity; and the last of these
writers co