re twelve between
Thraetaona and Manus_k_itra; and that there are thirteen generations
between Isaac and David, as there are thirteen between Manus_k_itra
and Zarathustra. What has the learned counsel for the defence to say
to this? First, that the name of Shem is put by mistake for that of
Noah. Secondly, that Yima, who is here identified with Adam, is never
represented in the Avesta as the first man, but is preceded there by
numerous ancestors, and surrounded by numerous subjects, who are not
his offspring. Thirdly, that in order to establish in Genesis three
periods of ten, twelve, and thirteen generations, it is necessary to
count Isaac, who clearly belongs to the third, as a member of the
second, so that in reality the number of generations is the same in
one only out of the three periods, which surely proves nothing. As to
any similarity between the Four Yugas of the Brahmans and the Four
Ages of the Parsis, we can only say that, if it exists, no one has as
yet brought it out. The Greeks, again, who are likewise said to share
the primitive doctrine of the Four Ages, believe really in five, and
not in four, and separate them in a manner which does not in the
least remind us of Hindu Yugas, Hebrew patriarchs, or the battle
between Ormuzd and Ahriman.

We proceed to a second point--the Creation as related in Genesis and
the Avesta. Here we certainly find some curious coincidences. The
world is created in six days in Genesis, and in six periods in the
Avesta, which six periods together form one year. In Genesis the
creation ends with the creation of man, so it does in the Avesta. On
all other points Dr. Spiegel admits the two accounts differ, but they
are said to agree again in the temptation and the fall. As Dr. Spiegel
has not given the details of the temptation and the fall from the
Avesta, we cannot judge of the points which he considers to be
borrowed by the Jews from the Persians; but if we consult M. Breal,
who has treated the same subject more fully in his 'Hercule et Cacus,'
we find there no more than this, that the Dualism of the Avesta, the
struggle between Ormuzd and Ahriman, or the principles of light and
darkness, is to be considered as the distant reflex of the grand
struggle between Indra, the god of the sky, and V_r_itra, the demon of
night and darkness, which forms the constant burden of the hymns of
the Rig-veda. In this view there is some truth, but we doubt whether
it fully exhibits the vital pri