That the cultivation of science was not neglected we may be sure from the keen interest taken in all ages by the Jews in magical and astrological inquiries.  We read in Apuleius, in his defence on the accusation of magic brought against him, that of the “four tutors appointed to educate the princes of Persia, one had to instruct him specially in the magic of Zoroaster and Oromazes, which is the worship of the gods.”  Apuleius wrote about 200 A.D., and his works teem with references to magic and astrology.

The fact that Jews and Christians were looked on as learned men will not surprise us, when we find that the Jews had established schools so long anterior to the foundation of the college of Baghdad.  The rapid progress made by the Arabians, and the wise policy of the Abasside Caliphs, under whose judicious rule learning was so liberally encouraged, aided by the position of Baghdad, which formed, as it were, a centre to which the wisdom of both eastern and western minds gravitated, attracted to their schools all those of every nation who boasted themselves philosophers.

The first translations from the Greek authors are supposed to have been made about A.D. 745, and are known to have been on the subjects of philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.  These translations are understood to have been made by Christian or Jewish physicians.

As we have seen, the Jews had already established themselves at Baghdad, and had founded schools of their own previous to the formation of the college under Caliph Al-Mansour; but further than this we find the Christians spread widely over the countries of Asia Minor, and we are told, on the authority of Cosmo-Indicopleustes, that so early as A.D. 535 there was in almost every large town in India a Christian Church under the Bishop of Seleucia.

With these facts before us—­1st, that Christian physicians were the leaders of the Arabian school in the eighth century; 2nd, that large numbers of Christian churches were actually in existence in India at least two hundred years previously to the establishment of the college at Baghdad; and 3rd, that Baghdad was almost, as it wore, the central point of the great caravan route which from time immemorial had been the course of communication between the East and West, can we doubt that an extensive intercourse must have taken place, and should we not expect to find some traces, if not the effects, of Indian science on the teaching of the Arabian school.[1]

[Footnote 1:  As to communication, the case of Saggid Mahmud (given in Bellew’s Indus to the Tigris), who, merely to pray for the recovery of his sick son, travelled with him from Ghazni by way of Kandahur and Shikarpur to Bombay, thence by way of sea to Baghdad, from there to Karbola, and back to Baghdad; and then by Kirmanshah and Kum to Teheran, on his way home to Ghazni, gives an indication of the long journeys taken under the most frightful difficulties.