Sabaeans

“ The inscriptions in the other dialect were engraved by the princes and people of Sabâ, the Sheba of the Old Testament, the Sabæans of classical geography. The Sabæan kingdom lasted to the time of Mohammed, when it was destroyed by the advancing forces of Islam. Its rulers for several generations had been converts to Judaism, and had been engaged in almost constant warfare with the Ethiopic kingdom of Axum, which was backed by the influence and subsidies of Rome and Byzantium. ”

“ Owing to the abundance of fruit the people were lazy and inactive, and reclined on the roots of the spice-trees. For fire-wood they used cinnamon and cassia. The occupation of the people was partly agriculture, and partly trade in spices, both native and imported from the opposite coast of Æthiopia (Africa) , whither the Sabæans passed over the inlet of the sea in boats of skins. The neighbouring tribes received the wares from the Sabæans, and then passed them on to their neighbours, till they reached Syria and Mesopotamia. ”

“ There is an account of such a plundering expedition in Job, 1: 14–15. This narrative is entirely probable and shows not only that the writer was well acquainted with the habits and customs of the Sabaeans but also that we should locate the residence of Job near some Sabaean oasis and thus to the southeast of the Dead Sea, where their caravans passed.
Other Biblical writers refer to the tribe of Saba only as traders. Ezekiel, 27: 22, records that the traders from Saba and Raʻama conveyed the best balsam, various precious stones, and gold to the market at Tyre. ”

“ Under the name Zabians used to be grouped several peoples distinct in origin and by no means alike in religion. The medieval Arabic and Jewish writers called nearly all those heathens or Sabæans who were neither Jews or Christians, nor Mohammedans or Magians. Now the name Sabæans denotes strictly the ancient inhabitants of southern Arabia, who were but little modified by Babylonian influences; the Zabians of the Koran were originally non-Christian Gnostics—the ancestors of the still existing Mandæans (q.v.) ”

“ But as, according to every other account given by Strabo, the Sabaeans had their home in Arabia Felix, and the Nabataeans at the northern extremity of the Red Sea, in Arabia Petraea, all that this passage can imply is, that at that part of Arabia which stretches towards the Syrian boundary, the expeditions of the Sabaeans came upon the Nabataeans. ”

“ Abd-Shams-Sabah, the grandson of J'arab, built the city of Mareb, the chief city of the Sabæans, according to the Greeks. This founder of the monarchy of the Sabæans left two sons, Himyar and Kachlan. The first was the progenitor of the Himyarites, who are mentioned even by Western writers, but not till the first century A.D., and then on the south coast between Mareb and Hadramaut. The name Himyarites includes the tribes of the Chatramites, the Codaa, the Kinana, the Dshoheina, &c. ”

“ The valley of the Nile is very narrow, not capable of containing a great and powerful people. Sheba and Saba were either one or two cities of the Cushites or Ethiopians, and Pliny says, that the Sabæans extended from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, thus giving them the whole of Arabia ”

“ Their commerce brought the Sabaeans under Christian and Jewish influence; and, though the old gods were too closely connected with their life and trade to be readily abandoned, the great change in the trading policy, already spoken of, seems to have affected religion as well as the state. The inland gods lost importance with the failure of the overland trade, and Judaism and Christianity seem for a time to have contended for the mastery in South Arabia. ”

“ Sabæan odors from the spicy shore
Of Arabie the blest,'
alludes to this country. The Sabæans were the ancient people of Yemen, called Sheba in the Book of Genesis. They were a wealthy and powerful people, and it was probably the queen of this region who made a celebrated visit to King Solomon. But we cannot follow them now.
"Yemen changed hands several times, belonging to Abyssinia, Persia, and the caliphs of Arabia, and has been fought for by Portuguese, Turks, and Egyptians; but now it is a Turkish province. ”

“ The Greeks having at length discovered the secret of the Arabs, resorted to the same countries as their rivals in commerce, and surpassing them in practical navigation and the construction of ships, the Sabæans were for some centuries reduced to a state of mercantile dependence and inferiority. In the meantime the Roman Empire declined; the Persians under the Sassanides engrossed the intercourse with the East, the trade of India now flowed through the Persian Gulf, and the ports of the Red Sea were deserted. ”

“ Each tribe, each family, each independent warrior, created and changed the rites and the object of his fantastic worship; but the nation, in every age, has bowed to the religion, as well as to the language, of Mecca. The genuine antiquity of the Caaba ascends beyond the Christian æra; in describing the coast of the Red Sea, the Greek historian Diodorus has remarked, between the Thamudites and the Sabæans, a famous temple, whose superior sanctity was revered by all the Arabians ”

“ Thus we can understand how in Gen. xxv. 2–3 Sheba and Dedan appear among the North-Arab “sons of Keturah.” Again, the Sabæans had colonies in Africa and there mingled with the black Africans; and so in Gen. x. 7 Sheba and Dedan, the sons of Raamah (Raghma) , appear in the genealogy of the Cushites. With the Ethiopians Saba’ means “men,” a clear indication of their Sabæan descent.
The queen of Sheba who visited Solomon may have come with a caravan trading to Gaza, to see the great king whose ships plied on the Red Sea. ”

“ To the same cause we may attribute the fact that in religion the Sabaeans seem to resemble the northern Semites more closely than do the tribes of central Arabia; but these considerations prove nothing in favour of a nearer linguistic affinity.
One thing at least is certain, that Arabic (with Sabaean, Mahri and Socotri) and Ethiopic stand in a comparatively close Northern and Southern groups. relationship to one another, and compose a group by themselves, as contrasted with the other Semitic languages, Hebraeo-Phoenician, Aramaic and Assyrian. ”

“ Similarly Sargon (715 b.c.) in his Annals mentions the tribute of Shamsi, queen of Arabia, and of Itamara of the land of Saba’, gold and fragrant spices, horses and camels.
The earliest Greek accounts of the Sabæans and other South-Arabian peoples are of the 3d century b.c. Eratosthenes (276–194 b.c.) in Strabo (xv. 4, 2) says that the extreme south of Arabia, over against Ethiopia, is inhabited by four great nations,—the Minæans (Μειναῖοι, Mηναῖοι; Ma‘in of the inscriptions) on the Red Sea, whose chief city is Carna ”

“ Saba, dear Cora, is the mightiest kingdom of Arabia; Saba is Arabia Felix, Cora. Saba is the sweet land where the balsam-trees grow and the precious spices are gathered: myrrh and frankincense and cinnamon. All the herbs and flowers, Cora, are scented in Saba; there is no herb and no flower that is not scented. Under the sky, which is transparent as empty blue space, the clouds of perfume waft up and rise to the feet of the gods, who always glance down smilingly upon my country, upon my happy country. The palm-tree is scented there and the calamus-reed is scented there ”

“ There can be no doubt of this expedition, as Pagan, Arab, Moor, Abyssinian, and all the countries round, vouch it pretty much in the terms of scripture.
Many321 have thought this queen was an Arab. But Saba was a separate state, and the Sabeans a distinct people from the Ethiopians and the Arabs, and have continued so till very lately. We know, from history, that it was a custom among these Sabeans, to have women for their sovereigns in preference to men, a custom which still subsists among their descendents. ”

“ Sabaism must be distinguished as ancient and modern. The first, especially if so remote as it is said to be, can but have imparted, and the other owe, more than one notion, dogma, and rite to Judaism, Christianism, and Muhammedism, all which may be considered as divisions of one and the same Asiatic religion. Thus, in all the four religions, the same patriarchs and the same books, such as the Psalter, are venerated; the Sabaians have a sort of baptism, as the Christians ”

“ Phœnician traders from the Persian Gulf, or nomadic tribes from the Arabian borders, Semitic families, attracted hither by the rich fertility of the Mesopotamian plains. These were Sabeans, perhaps, with a faint, far-off remembrance of the One God, ruler and creator of the universe, but now worshippers of the stars, the abodes of ministering spirits.
At this time in Sargon’s reign, long before the date accorded to Urea, The Builder, in the new empire arising in Accad, we find the early [86] beginnings of the Assyrian people. There was as yet no Assyria or Assyrians. ”

“ We need not, at this time of day, seek the cause; there are many very apparent, from opposite manners, and, above all, the difference in the dietetique regimen. The Egyptians worshipped the cow, the Shepherds killed and ate her. The Shepherds were Sabeans, worshipping the host of heaven — the sun, moon, and stars. Immediately upon the building of Thebes and the perfection of sculpture, idolatry and the grossest materialism greatly corrupted the more pure and speculative religion of the Sabeans. ”

“ The Nubians turned the two slaves about, lest their glances should defile the orisons of the faithful, and left them so facing the wall and the green gate that led into the garden whence were wafted on the cooling air the perfumes of jessamine and lavender. Through the laths of the gate they might have caught a glimpse of the riot of colour there, and they might have seen the slaves arrested by the Persian waterwheel at which they had been toiling and chanting until the call to prayer had come to strike them into statues. ”

“ Sabeans, descendants from Joktan, may very well be those mentioned by Ezekiel, xxvii, 23: “Saba, Assur, and Chelmad, thy dealers.” They are thought to have inhabited beyond the Euphrates; whence they are connected with Asshur and Chilmad, Gen. x, 28; 1 Chron. i, 22. 5. Sabeans are also placed in Africa, in the isle of Meroë. Josephus brings the queen of Sheba from thence, and pretends that it had the name of Shebah, or Saba, before that of Meroë.
SABELLIANS were so called from Sabellius, a presbyter, or, according to others, a bishop, of Upper Egypt, who was the founder of the sect. ”

“ Serpent-worship is perhaps the most significant form of Sabaism, involving, as it does, the expression of its source. For in the sacred language of Iran, whereof Irish is the leading type, the word Sabh (the root of Sabaism) has three [Pg lix] distinct, yet connected, meanings— (1) Voluptuousness, or the Yoni; (2) a Snake, or sinuosity; (3) Death. Through all these runs the central idea of sexual relation, which, as the most elementary part of social life, has been symbolised all over the world in connection with religion. ”

“ And they demonstrated at length how the men of Saba had misapplied the parable of the hare and the elephant, and again adjured them to believe. But the men of Saba continued refractory, and would not, accept the Prophets' counsels. They plied the prophets with the arguments of the Compulsionists (Jabriyan) , and refused to be convinced of the fallacy of their reasoning. So at last the prophets despaired of them, and left them to their doom.
Not every one can properly use similitudes and parables in divine matters. ”

“ Let us now carry our research into that region whence civilization spread through western Asia, and is said to have been carried to Egypt, Greece and Rome. It may be a surprise to many to learn that, at the present day, on the banks of the Euphrates, in Mesopotamia, pole-star worship, pure and simple, is openly professed by the Mandaïtes who are reputed to be the descendants of the famous Magi of ancient Chaldea, and are termed Sabba or Sabans by the Moslems. ”

“ The SABINI inhabited the rugged mountain-country in the central chain of the Apennines, lying between Etruria, Umbria, Picenum, Latium, and the country of the Marsi and Vestini. They were one of the most ancient races of Italy, and the progenitors of the far more numerous tribes which, under the names of Picentes, Peligni, and Samnites, spread themselves to the east and south. Modern writers have given the general name of Sabellians to all these tribes. The Sabines, like most other mountaineers, were brave, hardy, and frugal ”

“ Mars Saba, perched upon a crag, a human nest stuck high up against a perpendicular mountain wall, is a world of grand masonry that rises, terrace upon terrace away above your head, like the terraced and retreating colonnades one sees in fanciful pictures of Belshazzar’s Feast and the palaces of the ancient Pharaohs. No other human dwelling is near. ”

“ The three Jews, lithe, stalwart young men in black tunics that fell to their knees and black skull-caps upon their curly black locks, smiled ingratiatingly, hoping for the best since they were fallen into the hands of people who were nearer akin to them than Christians and allied to them, at least, by the bond of common enmity to Spain and common suffering at the hands of Spaniards. ”

“ The Koran recognizes them as distinct from idolaters, and places them with Jews and Christians as people of the book. [105] From this it is evident that the Sabeans could not have been, as some allege, a minor Christian sect or identical with the Hemero-Baptists. Although giving special honor to John the Baptist, they can in no sense be called Christians.
Isolated by a creed, cult and language of their own, the Sabeans [106] love their isolation and do not intermarry with strangers nor accept a proselyte to their faith. Nearly all of them follow one of three trades. ”