the father and stock whence the faithful sprung, was the son of Terah. He was descended from Noah by Shem, from whom he was nine degrees removed. Some fix his birth in the 130th year of Terah's age, but others place it in his father's 70th year. It is highly probable he was born in the city of Ur, in Chaldea, which he and his father left when they went to Canaan, where they remained till the death of Terah; after which, Abraham resumed his first design of going to Palestine. The Scriptures mention the several places he stopped at in Canaan; his journey into Egypt, where his wife was carried off from him; his going into Gerar, where Sarah was again taken from him, but restored, as before; the victory he obtained over the four kings who had plundered Sodom; his compliance with his wife, who insisted that he should make use of their maid Hagar in order to raise up children; the covenant God made with him, sealed with the ceremony of circumcision; his obedience to the command of God, who ordered him to offer up his only son as a sacrifice, and how this bloody act was prevented; his marriage with Keturah; his death at the age of 175 years; and his interment in the cave of Machpelah, near the body of Sarah his first wife. It would be of little use to dwell long upon these particulars, since they are so well known. But tradition has supplied numberless others, the mention of one or two of which may not be unacceptable.

Many extraordinary particulars have been told relating to his conversion from idolatry. It is a pretty general opinion, that he sucked in the poison with his milk; that his father made statues, and taught that they were to be worshipped as gods*. Some Jewish authors relate †, that Abraham followed the same trade with Terah for a considerable time. Maimonides ‡ says, that he was bred up in the religion of the Sabaeans, who acknowledged no deity but the stars; that he reflected on the nature of the planets, his admiration of their motions, beauty and order, made him conclude there must be a being superior to the machine of the universe, a being who created and governed it; however, according to an old tradition, he did not renounce Paganism till the 50th year of his age. It is related ||, that his father, being gone a journey, left him to sell the statues in his absence; and that a man, who pretended to be a purchaser, asked him how old he was: Abraham answered, "Fifty."—"Wretch that thou art (said the other), for adoring at such an age a being which is but a day old!" These words greatly confounded Abraham. Some time afterwards, a woman brought him some flour, that he might give it as an offering to the idols; but Abraham, instead of doing so, took up a hatchet and broke them all to pieces, excepting the largest, into the hand of which he put the weapon. Terah, at his return, asked whence came all this havoc? Abraham made answer, that the statues had had a great contest which should eat first of the oblation; "Upon which (said he), the god you see there, being the stoutest, hewed the others to pieces with that hatchet." Terah told him this was bantering; for those idols had not the sense to act in this manner. Abraham retorted these words upon his father against the worshipping of such gods. Terah, stung with this railery, delivered up his son to the cognizance of Nimrod, the sovereign of the country; who exhorted Abraham to worship the fire; and, upon his refusal, commanded him to be thrown into the midst of the flames: "Now let your God (said he) come and deliver you." But (adds the tradition) Abraham escaped from the flames unhurt.—This tradition is not of modern date, since it is told by St Jerome §; who seems to credit it in general, but disbelieves that part of it which makes Terah so cruel as to be the informer against his own son. Perhaps the ambiguity of the word Ur * might have given rise to the fiction altogether. Such as lay stress on the following words which God says to Abraham (Gen. xvi. 10, and it 7.), I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, imagine that he saved him from a great persecution, since he employed the very same words in the beginning of the decalogue to denote the deliverance from Egypt.

Abraham is said to have been well skilled in many sciences, and to have wrote several books. Josephus tells us that he taught the Egyptians arithmetic and geometry; and according to Eupolemus and Artapan, he instructed the Phoenicians, as well as the Egyptians, in astronomy. A work which treats of the creation has been long ascribed to him: it is mentioned in the Talmud †, and the rabbis Chanina and Hoschiah used to read it on the eve before the Sabbath. In the first ages of Christianity, according to St Epiphanius ||, a heretical sect, called Sethianians, dispersed a piece which had the title of Abraham's Revelation. Origen mentions also a treatise supposed to be wrote by this patriarch. All the several works which Abraham composed in the plains of Mamre, are said to be contained in the library of the monastery of the Holy Cross on Mount Amuria in Ethiopia §. The book on the creation was printed at Paris 1552, and translated into Latin by Postel: Rittangel, a converted Jew, and professor at Konigsberg, gave also a Latin translation of it, with remarks, in 1642.