No More Learning

487), and Themech' (l. 509) are not creatures of Donne's invention,
but derived from his multifarious learning. It is, however, a little
difficult to detect the immediate source from which he drew. The
ultimate source of all these additions to the Biblical narrative and
persons was the activity of the Jewish intellect and imagination in
the interval between the time at which the Old Testament closes and
the dispersion under Titus and Vespasian, the desire of the Jews in
Palestine and Alexandria to 'round off the biblical narrative, fill
up the lacunae, answer all the questions of the inquiring mind of the
ancient reader'. Of the original Hebrew writings of this period none
have survived, but their traditions passed into mediaeval works like
the _Historia Scholastica_ of Petrus Comestor and hence into popular
works, e. g. the Middle English _Cursor Mundi_. Another compendium
of this pseudo-historical lore was the _Philonis Judaei Alexandrini.
Libri Antiquitatum. Quaestionum et Solutionum in Genesin. de Essaeis.
de Nominibus hebraicis. de Mundo. Basle. _ 1527.
An abstract of this
work is given by Annius of Viterbo in the book referred to in a
previous note. Dr. Cohn has shown that this Latin work is a third- or
fourth-century translation of a Greek work, itself a translation from
the Hebrew. More recently Rabbi M. Gaster has brought to light the
Hebrew original in portions of a compilation of the fourteenth century
called the _Chronicle of Jerahmeel_, of which he has published
an English translation under the 'Patronage of the Royal Asiatic
Society', _Oriental Translation Fund_. New Series, iv. 1899. In
chapter xxvi of this work we read: 'Adam begat three sons and three
daughters, Cain and his twin wife Qualmana, Abel and his twin wife
Deborah, and Seth and his twin wife N? ba. And Adam, after he had
begotten Seth, lived seven hundred years, and there were eleven sons
and eight daughters born to him. These are the names of his sons: Eli,
Sh? ? l, Surei, 'Almiel, Berokh, Ke'al, Nabath, Zarh-amah, Sisha,
Mahtel, and Anat; and the names of his daughters are: Havah, Gitsh,
Har? , Bikha, Zifath, H? khiah, Shaba, and 'Azin. ' In Philo this
reappears as follows: 'Initio mundi Adam genuit tres filios et unam
filiam, Cain, Noaba, Abel, et Seth: Et vixit Adam, postquam genuit
Seth, annos DCC.