There exists a rare Persian work known as the Marzubán-náma , of which extracts have been published by the late The Marzubán­náma. M. Charles Schefer in his Chrestomathie Persane (Paris, 1885; vol. ii, pp. 194-211 of the Notes, and pp. 172-199 of the texts). This is a trans­lation made by Sa'd of Waráwín towards the end of the twelfth century of our era from an original composed in the Mázan-darání dialect by the Ispahbad Marzubán somewhere about A.H. 400 (= A.D. 1009-1010). To the same writer is ascribed a poem entitled Níkí-náma; and it is interesting to note the considerable use made in literature (of which there is a good deal of scattered evidence) of this and other cognate dialects, and to compare the similar state of things which pre­vailed in England after the Norman Conquest before victory was assured to the Mercian dialect, and while the other dialects were still contending for the position of literary idioms.

There is another branch of Persian literature (that of the Persian Jews, written in the Persian language but in the Judæo-Persian literature. Hebrew character) of which one (and that the most interesting) monument may possibly go back to the ninth or tenth century of our era, though Darmesteter and other authorities place it in the Mongol period (thirteenth century of our era), while Munk puts it a century earlier. To this literature (represented by a considerable number of MSS., of which some twenty are in the Biblio-thèque Nationale at Paris) attention was first called by Munk in the Bible de Cahn (ix, pp. 134-159), and it has since been discussed pretty fully by Zotenberg (Merx's Archiv, vol. i, Halle, 1870, pp. 385-427), who there published and translated the Apocrypha of Daniel, concerning which we are about to speak; Paul de Lagarde (Persische Studien, Göttingen, 1884); Dar-mesteter (Revue Critique for June, 1882: new series, vol. xiii, pp. 450-454; and Mélanges Rénier, Paris, 1887, pp. 405-420); Salemann, and other scholars. Most of this Judæo-Persian literature is, except from the philological point of view, of little value, consisting merely of vocabularies of Hebrew words explained in Persian, translations of the Pentateuch and other The Apocrypha of Daniel. Hebrew books, and some poems; but the Apo­crypha of Daniel (No. 128 of the Hebrew and Samaritan MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale), which, if not itself original, yet represents a lost Chaldæan original, is of an altogether different order. This Apocrypha is divided by Darmesteter into three parts, viz.: (1) A series of legends relating to Daniel, some biblical, some rabbinical; (2) a pseudo-prophetic sketch of historical events, in which the first definitely recognisable figure is the Prophet Muḥammad and the last the Caliph al-Ma'mún († A.D. 833); (3) one of those fanciful descriptions of Messianic times which are so frequent in Jewish works.

To those who believed in the prophetic inspiration of this document the last portion was no doubt the most interesting, but to such as judge by the ordinary standards of criticism it is the second—containing what Darmesteter happily terms, “l'his-toire prophétisée”—which most appeals. The Apocrypha pur­ports to contain the vision of things to come until the advent of the Messiah shown by God to the Prophet Daniel, and this vision or Apocalypse is introduced by the words, “O Daniel, I show thee how many kings there shall be in each nation and religion; I will inform thee how it shall be.” Then follow several rather vague references, doubtfully interpreted by Darmesteter as applying to Ahasuerus, the Seleucidæ, and the Sásánians; then a prophetic description of an ungodly king who shall call himself “Bihishtí” (“Celestial”), and by whom, as Darmesteter thinks, Núshírwán (= Anûshak-rûbân = “of Immortal Soul”) is intended; and then is described “a short, red-complexioned king, who regards not God's Word, and claims to be a prophet, having been a camel driver; and who shall come forth from the south riding on a camel, greatly persecute the Jews, and die after a reign of eleven years. This personage is evidently intended for Muḥammad, and from this point onwards until the death of al-Ma'mún (i.e., from A.H. 1 to 218 = A.D. 622-833) the succession of Muhammadan rulers can be quite clearly traced. At this point, as Darmesteter admits, the chronological sequence of events ceases; but in the succeeding paragraphs he thinks that allusion is made to the Crusades, and in particular to Godefroy de Bouillon and his Red Cross Knights; and that is why he places the composition of the Pseudo-Apocalypse not in the tenth but in the thirteenth century of our era. Personally, I am disposed to regard these supposed references to the Crusades and the red-garbed warriors who shall come from Rúm even to Damascus as too indefinite to preclude the possibility that they have no connection with real history, in which case this curious Apocrypha may well belong to the period we have been considering, if not to that previous period which we have called “the Golden Age.”