asked his shoemaker to make him a pair of shoes which would last for seven years, also at a magician who was exhibiting his skill. When Solomon questioned him about his strange conduct on the journey, he replied that he judged persons and things according to their real character, and not according to their appearance in the eyes of men. He cried when he saw the bridal procession, because he knew the bridegroom had not a month to live; and he laughed at the man who wanted shoes which would last for seven years, because he knew the man would not wear them for seven days. In this respect he corresponds to Asmodée in Lesage's "Le Diable Boiteux."

Asmodeus dwelt on a mountain. He went to heaven every day to take part in the discussions at the celestial house of study. Then he descended again to earth to be present, invisibly, at the debates in the earthly seats of learning. This may explain the malice we often notice in learned discussions. In the Christian pseudepigraph, "The Testament of Solomon" (translated by Conybeare in JQR 11, 1-45), Asmodeus answers Solomon's question concerning his name and functions as follows: I am called Asmodeus among mortals, and my business is to plot against the newly-wedded, so that they may not know one another. I sever them utterly by many calamities. In this respect Asmodeus corresponds to Oberon in Wieland's poem, but the calamities which befall Huon and his spouse are merely disciplinary trials, just as Job's suffering is but a test of his faith in God. Asmodeus tells Solomon: I waste away the beauty of virgins. and estrange their hearts . . . I transport men into fits of madness and desire when they have wives of their own, so that they leave them, and go off by night and day to others that belong to other men, with the result that they commit sin and fall into murderous deeds (JE 2, 217-220).

The first mention of Asmodeus is found in the Book of Tobiti.e., about 167 B.C. Sennacherib in the Book of Tobit represents Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria (175-164 B.C.), who appears in the Book of Daniel, which originated about the same time, as Nebuchadnezzar. The Second Book of the Maccabees (9, 15) says that Antiochus Ephiphanes had judged the Jews not worthy so much as

to be buried, but to be cast out with their children to be devoured by the birds and wild beasts. In connection with the account of the murder in one day of sixty Assideans (i.e., orthodox Jews) at the hands of the Hellenizing high priest Alcimus (161 B.C.), I Mac. 7, 17 quotes some lines of Ps. 79: The flesh of Thy saints and their blood have they shed round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them.

This Maccabean poem, which consists of four triplets with 3+3 beats, may be translated as follows:

In our sight manifest on the heathen

revenge for Thy servants' blood shed by them; mn

12 Into their bosom sevenfold render

the insults wherewith they insulted Thee."

13 Then we, the flock of Thy pasture,

I will thank Thee for ever and ay."

(h)

(k)

5 for ever? (i) over the heathen who do not acknowledge Thee and 8 for we are very wretched

(1) 9 Save us and forgive us our sins

for the sake of Thy name.

Into their bosom in v. 12 means into their lap; cf. Luke 6, 38; Is. 65, 7; 2 K 4, 39; Ruth 3, 15; see my paper "Abraham's Bosom " in AJP 42, 163; Lazarus was not carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom, but into Abraham's lap; Michel Angelo's famous. marble group Pietà at St. Peter's in Rome shows the Virgin with the body of the dead Christ on her lap (see pl. ix, no. 13, at the end of MK 2).

The best English translation of the Book of Tobit is given in "The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English," with introductions and critical and explanatory notes to the several books, edited in conjunction with many scholars by R. H. Charles (Oxford, 1913). Tobit has been contributed by D. C. Simpson, of Manchester College, Oxford. He gives an elaborate critical apparatus, but hardly any explanatory notes. In his learned introduction he states (p. 183) that the book is certainly preMaccabean, and that it probably emanated from orthodox Jewish circles in Egypt. Although this view is endorsed by a number of distinguished Biblical scholars, I believe that the book was written by a Persian Jew for the encouragement of his coreligionists in Palestine at the beginning of the Maccabean rebellion, about B.C. 167, just as I pointed out six years ago (OLZ 18, 71; JSOR 2, 77) that Gen. 14 was written by a Babylonian Jew for the inspiration of the followers of the Davidic prince Zerubbabel who rebelled against the Persians at the beginning of the year 519 B.C. (cf. JBL 37, 210; contrast E. Naville, "The Text of the Old Testament," London, 1916, p. 30). We need not suppose that the story of Tobit was brought to Egypt by Persian soldiers of Cambyses (Simpson, p. 194, n. 3). If Tobit had been written in Egypt, the author would not have said that when Asmodeus smelled the liver and the heart of the fish, which Tobias had put on the embers of the incense, he fled into the upper parts of Egypt (Tob. 8, 3).

PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC., VOL. LX, F, DEC. 20, 1921.

The Syrian persecution was regarded as a chastisement for the sins of the chosen people.2 Tobit says in 13, 9: O Jerusalem, thou holy city, He will chastise thee for the work of thy hands, and will again have mercy on the sons of the righteous; and in v. 12: Cursed shall be all they that shall speak a hard word; cursed shall be all they that demolish thee, and throw down thy walls, and all they that overthrow thy towers and set fire on thy habitations. This is directed against the Syrians: in 168 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes's chief collector of tribute plundered Jerusalem, set it on fire, pulled down the houses and the walls on every side. Tobit (13, 14) says: Blessed shall be all the men that shall sorrow for thee for all thy chastisements, because they shall rejoice in thee and shall see all thy joy forever. Jerusalem shall be built again as His house unto all the ages. In Tobit's last words to his son (14, 4): I believe the word of God upon Nineveh, which Nahum spake, that all those things will be, and will befall Assyria and Nineveh, Assyria stands for Syria, and Nineveh for Antioch. The Book of Nahum is a liturgical compilation for the celebration of Judas Maccabæus's glorious victory over Nicanor on the 13th of Adar, 161 B.C. The first two poems are Maccabean, but the last two were written by an Israelitish poet who saw the fall of Nineveh in 606 B.C. (Nah. 1). Grotius (1644) had correctly conjectured that Jonah had been inserted in place of Nahum in Tob. 14, 4 under the influence of Jon. 3, 4 (Simpson 239, 4). The Sinaiticus reads Nahum instead of Jonah.

In the abstract of a paper, "The Site of Nineveh in the Book of Tobit," which Professor Torrey, of Yale, intended to present at the meeting of the American Oriental Society held at Cornell University in 1920, it was pointed out that in the longer (and older) version of Tobit, Tobias and the angel, as they come near to Nineveh on their return from Ecbatana, passed through another city lying just across the river; several converging lines of evidence indicate that the Nineveh of the story is Seleucia with its sister city Ctesiphon lying opposite; the actual site of Nineveh was not known at that time. As stated above, Assyria is used in Maccabean texts for Syria, and

2 Cf. Tob. 13, 5. 9 and 2 Mac. 1, 27-29; 6, 12-16; also Tob. 13, 12 in Simpson's translation and I Mac. 1, 31; finally Tob. 1, 17-19; 2, 7; 12, 12, 13 and 2 Mac. 9, 15; 1 Mac. 7, 17.

Nineveh for Antioch on the Orontes, which was founded as his chief seat of government by Seleucus Nicator after the battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C. Also Seleucia on the Tigris, opposite Ctesiphon on the left bank, c. 50 miles north of Babylon, and 15 miles south of Bagdad, was founded by Seleucus Nicator (cf. Streck, "Seleucia und Ktesiphon," Leipsic, 1917). Tobit can not have been written in the days of Sennacherib c. 700; it must have been composed by a Persian Jew c. 170 B.C. Also the Book of Esther was written by a Persian Jew c. 130 B.C. On the other hand, the so-called Third Book of the Maccabees is an Egyptian festal legend for the feast of Purim, while the Book of Judith is a Palestinian Purim legend (Pur. 7; Est. 2).

It has been observed that the Book of Tobit has an Iranian background. This was discussed by J. H. Moulton in ET, March, 1900. An excursus on Magianism and the Book of Tobit is attached to Lecture II in Moulton's Hibbert Lectures delivered in 1912. Tobit's daughter-in-law lived in Ecbatana, the present Hamadân, near the foot of Mt. Elvend, 188 miles southwest of the capital of modern Persia, Teherân. Even now one tenth of the inhabitants of Hamadân are Jews. The town contains the alleged sarcophagi of Esther and Mordecai, also the tomb of the great Arabian physician and philosopher Avicenna who died in 1037 A.D. Tobit had deposited money in Rages, the Avestan Rhaga, which is mentioned in the Behistûn inscription of Darius Hystaspis (2, 13): the Median Phraortes, who had rebelled against Darius in 522, fled to Ragâ, but was captured and impaled in Ecbatana (Weissbach, " Achämeniden,' PP. 39, 153). The name survives in the huge ruins of Rai, situated some 5 miles southeast of Teherân (DB 4, 193; EB 4005). It was one of the strongest fortresses of the Persian empire. The ruins occupy a space about 4,500 yards long by 3,500 broad. A historical sketch of Ragha, the supposed home of Zoroaster's mother, has been given by Professor Jackson, of Columbia University, in the Spiegel Memorial Volume, published at Bombay in 1908.

Asmodeus, the name of the demon who killed the seven bridegrooms of Sara until Tobit's son, Tobias, expelled him, is the Persian Aeshma-dêwa. This was pointed out long ago by Benfey in