whose good actions are outbalanced by their evil ones will be cast into Hell fire.

It has been pointed out that the idea of weighing men's actions occurs in the Talmud, e.g. in Rosh Hashshanah, cap. 17. It may there be derived from Daniel v. 27. But in this case the balance spoken of is a metaphorical one, and the "weighing" of Belshazzar does not take place on the Resurrection Day, or even after his death, but while he is still alive. We must look elsewhere for the origin of the Muhammadan conception, and we find it once more in an apocryphal book, the "Testament of Abraham ¹." This work seems to have been originally written in Egypt. It was known to Origen, and was probably composed either in the second century of our era, or not later than the third, by a Jewish convert to Christianity. It exists in two Greek recensions and also in an Arabic version. The resemblance between certain passages in this book and certain verses of the Qur'an and also later Muhammadan Tradition is too great to be merely fortuitous ². This is especially observable in what is told us in the "Testament of Abraham" in reference to the "Balance."

It is there stated that when the Angel of Death came by God's command to take away Abraham's

spirit, the patriarch made request that before dying he should be permitted to behold the marvels of heaven and earth. Permission being granted, he ascended to the sky under the leadership of the angel, and saw all things that were to be seen. When he reached the second heaven, he there perceived the Balance in which an angel weighs men's deeds, as the following passage explains:—

"In ¹ the midst of the two gates stood a throne, and on it sat a marvellous man ... and before him stood a table like unto crystal, all of gold and fine linen. And on the table lay a book, its thickness was six cubits and its breadth ten cubits. And to the right and left of it (the table) there stood two ² angels, holding paper and ink and a pen. And in front of the table was seated a light-bearing angel, holding a Balance in his hand; and to the left sat a fiery angel, altogether merciless and stern, holding in his hand a trumpet, in which he kept an all consuming fire, the test of sinners. And the marvellous man who was seated on the throne was himself judging and proving the souls, but the two angels who were on the right and on the left were registering: the one on the right was registering the righteous acts, but the one on the