SECT. XVI. From foreign testimonies.

TO these we may add the testimony of a great number, who were strangers to the Jewish religion, which shews that the most ancient tradition among all nations is exactly agreeable to the relation of Moses. For his description of the original of the world is almost the very same as in the ancient Phœnician histories, which are translated by Philo 23Biblius from Sanchuniathon’s collection;³³³³   Eusebius has preserved them for us in his first book, chap. 10. of his Preparation. “The theology of the Phœnicians supposes the foundation of the universe to have been a dark and windy air, or the breath of a dark air, and a dismal chaos, covered with thick darkness; that these were infinite, and had no bounds for many ages. But, when this spirit or breath placed its desire or love on these first principles, and a mixture was produced thereby, this conjunction was called love: this was the beginning of the creation of all things; but the breath, or spirit, was not created; and from its embraces proceeded Μὼτ, Mot, which some call Mud, others the corruption of a watery mixture. This was the seminary, and from hence were all things produced.” In Moses’s history we find the spirit or breath, and the darkness; and the Hebrew word מרחפת Merachepheth, signifies Love. Plutarch, Symposiac. viii. prob. 1. explaining of Plato, says, that God is the father of the world, not by the emission of seed, but by a certain generative power infused into matter; which he illustrates by this similitude:
   ” The female bird is oft impregnated
By the quick motion of the wind.”
   And Μὼτ, Mot, ומוט, whence the Greeks derive their Μόθος, Mothos, signifies in Hebrew תהום Tehom, in Greek, Ἄβυσσος, an Abyss already in motion. For Ἄβυσσος, Abyssos, is in Ennius nothing else but Mud, if I understand him right:—
   “From muddy Tartarus a birth gigantic sprung.”
   This mud separated into earth and sea. Apollonius in the ivth of his Argonautics,
   “The earth’s produced from mud.”
   Upon which place the Scholiast says; “Zeno affirms, that the chaos in Hesiod is water, of which all things were made; the water subsiding made mud, and the mud congealing made solid earth.” Now this Zeno was a Phœnician, a colony of whom were planted in Cittium, whence the Hebrews call all beyond the seas כתים Chittim. Not much different from which is that of Virgil, Eclogue vi.
   “Then earth began to harden, and include
The seas within its bounds, and things to take
Their proper forms.”
   Numenius, cited by Porphyry, about the nymph’s den, affirms, “That it was said by the prophet, (meaning Moses), that the Spirit of God was moved upon the waters;” the same expression which Tertullian uses concerning baptism. Now, because the Hebrew word מרחפת Merachepheth signifies properly the brooding of a dove upon her eggs, therefore it follows in Sanchuniathon, that the living creatures, that is, the constellations, were in that mud, as in an egg; and hence that spirit is called by the name of the dove: under the similitude of which dove, rabbi Solomon explains the word מרחפת Merachepheth. Nigidius, in the Scholiast of Germauicus, says, “That there was found an egg of a huge bigness, which, being rolled about, was cast upon the earth, and, after a few days, Venus, the goddess of Syria, was hatched thereby.” Lucius Ampelius, in his book to Matrinus, says, “It is reported that, in the river Euphrates, a dove sat many days upon a fish’s egg, and hatched a goddess, very kind and merciful to the life of man.” Macrobius resembles the world to an egg, in the viith book and 16th chap. of his Saturnalia. It is said to be “the beginning of generation” in the Orphic verses mentioned by Plutarch, Symposiac. xi. chap. 3. and Athenagoras. And hence the Syrian gods are called by Arnobius, “the offspring of eggs;” by which gods he means the stars. For it follows in the Phœnician theology, that “the mud was illuminated with light, whence came the sun and moon, and great and little stars.” You see here, as in Moses, that light was before the sun. The word that Moses uses immediately after, I mean ארץ Erets; where evidently that which was dried from the water is called יברהJabashah; the same Pherecydes, from the authority of the Syrians, expresses thus, (as we are informed by others, but particularly by Josephus in his first book against Appion:) “Chthonia was the name given to the earth after that Jupiter had honoured it.” This place we find in Diogenes Laërtius, and others; and Anaximander calls the sea “that which remained of the first moisture of things.” That things were confused before their separation, (concerning which you have the very words of Moses in Chalcidius’s explication of Timæus), Linus informs us, as he was himself taught, that
   “In the beginning all things were confused.”
   So Anaxagoras, “All things were blended together, till the Divine Mind separated them, and adorned and regulated that which was confused.” And for this reason was the name mind given by Anaxagoras, as Phliasius assures us in his Timon;
   “For Anaxagoras, that hero fam’d,
was term’d a mind, ’cause that was thought by him
A mind, which from confusion order brought.”
   All this came from the Phœnicians, who held a very ancient correspondence with the Greeks. The ancients say that Linus was descended from Phœnix: so Orpheus had his opinions from the Phœnicians, one of which was this in Athenagoras, “That mud proceeded from water.” After which he mentions a great egg split into two parts, heaven and earth. From the same Orpheus, Timotheus the chronographer cites this passage; “The chaos was dark as night, in which darkness all things under this sky were involved; the earth could not be seen by reason of the darkness, till light, breaking from the sky, illuminated every creature.” See the place in Scaliger, in the beginning of the first book of the Greek Chronicle of Eusebius. In that which follows of Sanchuniathon, it is called βάαυν, which is certainly the בהו bohu of Moses. And the winds, which are there called κολπία, Kolpia, are the same with קל־פ־יהKolphijah, the voice of the mouth of God. and a good part 24 25of it is to be found among the Indians³⁴³⁴   Megasthenes, in the fifteenth book of Strabo, expresses their opinion thus: “That in many things they agree with the Greeks; as that the world had a beginning, and will have an end; that it is of a spherical figure; that God, the Creator and Governor of it, penetrates all things; that things had different beginnings; and that the world was made of water.” Clement has preserved the words of Megasthenes himself out of his third book of the Indian history, strom. i. “All that was of old said concerning the nature of things, we find also said by the philosophers who lived out of Greece, the Brachmans among the Indians, and they that are called Jews in Syria.” and Egyptians;³⁵³⁵   Concerning whom, see Laërtius in his Prœmium, “The foundation was a confused chaos, from whence the four elements welt separated, and living creatures made.” And a little after, “That as the world had a beginning, so it will have an end.” Diodorus Siculus explains their opinion thus: “In the beginning of the creation of all things, the heavens and the earth had the same form and appearance, their natures being mixed together; but afterwards the parts separating from one another, the world received that form in which we now behold it, and the air a continual motion, The fiery part ascended highest, because the lightness of its nature caused it to tend upwards; for which reason the son and multitude of stars go in a continual round; the muddy and grosser part, together with the fluid, sunk down, by reason of its heaviness. And this, rolling and turning itself continually round, from in moisture produced the see, and from the more solid parts proceeded the earth, as yet very soft and miry; but when the sun began to shine upon it, it grew firm and hard; and the warmth causing the superficies of it to ferment, the moisture in many places swelling, put forth certain putrid substances, covered with skins; such as we now see in fenny moorish grounds, when, the earth being cool, the air happens to grow warm, not by a gradual change, but on a sudden. Afterwards the fore-mentioned substances, in the moist places, having received life from the heat in that manner, were nourished in the night by what fell from the cloud surrounding them, and in the day they were strengthened by the heat. Lastly, when these fœtuses were come to their full growth, and the membranes by which they were inclosed broke by the heat, all sorts of creatures immediately appeared; those that were of a hotter nature became birds, and mounted up high; those that were of a grosser and earthy nature became creeping things, and such like creatures, which are confined to the earth; and those which were of a watery nature immediately betook themselves to a place of the like quality, and were called fish. Now the earth being very much dried and hardened, by the heat of the sun, and by the wind, was no longer able to bring forth living creatures, but they were afterwards begotten by mixing with each other. Euripides seems not to contradict this account, who was the scholar of Anaxagoras the philosopher; for he says thus in his Menalippe,
   “Heaven and earth at first were of one form,
But when their different parts were separate,
Thence sprung beasts, fowls, and all the shoals of fish,
Nay, even men themselves.”
   “This therefore is the account we have received of the original of things. And if it should seem strange to any one, that the earth should in the beginning have a power to bring forth living creatures, it may be further confirmed by what we see comes to pass even now. For at Thebais in Egypt, upon the river Nile’s very much overflowing its banks, and thereby moistening the ground, immediately by the heat of tile sun is caused a putrefaction, out of which arises an incredible number of mice. Now, if after the earth has been thus hardened, and the air does not preserve its original temperature, yet some animals are notwithstanding produced; from hence, they say, it is manifest, that in the beginning all sorts of living creatures were produced out of the earth in this manner.” If we add to this, that God is the Creator, who is called by Anaxagoras a Mind, you will find many things agreeing with Moses, and the tradition of the Phœnicians: as the heavens and earth mixed together, the motion of the air, the mud or abyss, the light, the stars, the separation of heaven and earth, and sea, the birds, the creeping things, fishes, and other animals; and, last of all. mankind. Macrobius, in his seventh of his Saturnalia, chap. 18, transcribed the following words from the Egyptians: “If we allow, what our adversaries affirm, that the things which now are had a beginning; nature first formed all sorts of animals perfect; and then ordained, by a perpetual law, that their succession should be continued by procreation. Now, that they might be made perfect in the beginning, we have the evidence of very many creatures produced perfect from the earth and the water; as in Egypt, mice; and, in other places, frogs, serpents, and the like.” And it is with just reason that Aristotle prefers Anaxagoras before any a the ancient Greek philosophers, Metaphys. book i. chap. 3, as a sober man, when the rest were drunken; because they referred every thing to matter, whereas this man added also a cause, which acts with design; which cause Aristotle calls Nature, and Anaxagores Mind, which is better; and Moses, God; and so does Plato. See Laërtius, where he treats concerning the first principles of things, according to the opinion of Plato; and Appuleius concerning the opinions of Plato. Thales, who was before Anaxagoras, taught the same; as Velleius in Cicero tells us, in his first book of the Nature of the Gods. “For Thales Milesius, who was the first that inquired into such things as these, says, that water was the beginning of all things; and that God was that Mind which formed all things out of water.” Where, by water he means the chaos, which Xenophon and others call earth; all of them well enough, if we rightly apprehend them. 26 27whence it is that in Linus,³⁶³⁶   In the verse quoted above. Hesiod,³⁷³⁷   In his Theogonia:—
   “The rise of all things was a chaos rude,
Whence sprung the spacious earth, n seat for gods,
Who dwell oil high Olympus’ snowy top,
Nor are excluded from the dark abyss
Beneath the earth; from hence the god of love,
Most amiable of all, who frees the breasts
Of men and gods from anxious cares and thoughts,
And comforts each of them with soft delight;
   Greek writers, mention is made of a chaos, (signified by some under the name of an egg), and of the framing of
   From hence rose Erebus, and gloomy night.
These produced æther, and the gladsome day,
As pledges of their love.”
   If we compare this with those of the Phœnicians now quoted, it will seem to be taken from them. For Hesiod lived hard by the Theban Bœotia, which was built by Cadmus the Phœnician. Ἔριβος, Erebus, is the same as Moses’s ערב Ereb, which night and day follow in the hymns that are ascribed to Orpheus,
   “All things that are, sprung from a chaos vast.”
   In the Argonautics, which go under the same name;
   “In verse he sang the original of things,
Nature’s great change; how heaven on high was fram’d,
The earth established, and begirt with sea;
How love created all things by his power.
And gave to each of them his proper place.”
   So also Epicharmus, the most ancient comic poet, relating an old tradition,
   “’Tis said that chaos was before the gods.”
   And Aristophanes, in his play called the Birds, in a passage pre. Served by Lucian, in his Philopatris, and by Suidas,
   “First of all was chaos and night, dark Erebus and gloomy Tartarus; There was no earth, nor air, nor heaven, till dusky night,
   By the wind’s power on the wide bosom of Erebus, brought forth an egg,
   Of which was hatch’d the god of love, (when time began), who, with his golden wings
   Fixed to his shoulders, flew like a mighty whirlwind; and mixing with black chaos,
   In Tartarus’ dark shades, produced mankind, and brought them into light.
   For, before love joined all things, the gods themselves had no existence;
   But upon this conjunction, all things being mixed and blended, æther arose;
   And sea and earth, and the blessed abodes of the immortal gods.”
   These appear, upon a very slight view, to be taken from the tradition of the Phœnicians, who held an ancient correspondence with the inhabitants of Attica, the most ancient of the Ionians. We have already spoken of Erebus. Tartarus is תהום Tehom, Αβυσσος, Abyssos; and מרחפת Merachepheth, signifies Love, as was shewn before: to which agrees that of Parmenides,
   “Love was the first of all the gods.” and many other 28 29animals, and also of man’s formation after the Divine image, and the dominion given him over all living creatures, which are to be seen in many writers, particularly in Ovid, who transcribed them from the Greek:³⁸³⁸   The place is no further than the first book of his Metamorphoses, and is very well worth reading; the principal things in it being so very like those of Moses, and almost the same words, so that they afford much light to what has been already said, and are likewise much illustrated by it:—
   “Before the sea, and earth, and heaven’s high roof,
Were framed, nature had but one form, one face;
The world was then a chaos, one huge mass,
Gross, undigested; where the seeds of things
Lay in confusion, and disorder hurl’d,
Without a sun to cherish with his warmth
The rising world, or paler horned moon.
No earth, suspended in the liquid air,
Borne up by his own weight; no ocean vast,
Through unknown tracts of land to cut his way;
But sea, and earth, and air, are mix’d In one;
The earth unsettled, sea innavigable,
The air devoid of light; no form remain’d:
For each resisted each, being all confin’d;
Hot jarr’d with cold, and moist resisted dry;
Hard, soft, light, heavy, strove with mighty force;
Till God and nature did the strife compose,
By parting heaven from earth, and sea from land,
And from gross air the liquid sky dividing;
All which, from lumpish matter once discharg’d,
Had each his proper place, by law decreed:
The light and fiery parts upwards ascend,
And fill the region of the arched sky;
The air succeeds, as next in weight, and place;
The earth, compos’d of grosser elements,
Was like a solid orb begirt with sea.
Thus the well-order’d mass into due parts
Was separated by Divine command.
And first, the earth not stretch’d into a plain,
But like an artificial globe condens’d;
Upon whose surface winding rivers glide,
And stormy seas, whose waves each shore rebound.
Here fountains send forth streams, there one broad lake
Fills a large plain; thus, mix’d with pools and springs,
The gentle streams which roll along the ground,
Are some by thirsty hollow earth absorb’d;
Some in huge channels to the ocean bend,
And leave their banks to beat the sandy shore.
By the same power were plains and vales produc’d,
And shady woods and rocky mountains rais’d.
The heaven begirt with zones; two on the right,
Two on the left, the torrid one between.
The same distinction does the earth maintain,
By care divine into five climates mark’d;
Of which the middlemost, through heat immense,
Has no inhabitants; two with deep snow
Are cover’d; what remain are temperate.
Next, between heaven and earth the air was fix’d,
Lighter than earth, but heavier than fire;
In this low region storms and clouds were hung,
And hence loud thunder timorous mortals fright;
And forked lightning, mix’d with blasts of wind.
But the wise Framer of the world did not
Permit them every where; because their force
Is scarce to be resisted, (when each wind
Prevaileth in its turn); but nature shakes,
Their discord is so great. And first the east
Obtains the morn, Arabia’s desert land;
And Persia’s, bounded by the rising sun:
Next, Zephyr’s gentle breeze, where Phœbus dips
Himself into the sea: then the cold north,
At whose sharp blasts the hardy Scythians shake:
And last the south, big with much rain and clouds.
Above this stormy region of the air
Was the pure æther plac’d, refin’d and clear.
When each had thus his proper bounds decreed,
The stars, which in their grosser mass lay hid,
Appear’d, and shone throughout the heaven’s orb.
Then, lest a barren desert should succeed,
Creatures of various kinds each place possess’d.
The gods and stars celestial regions fill,
The waters with large shoals of fishes throng’d,
The earth with beasts, the air with birds was stock’d.
Nothing seem’d wanting, but a mind endu’d
With sense and reason to rule o’er the rest;
Which was supplied by man, the seed divine
Of him who did the frame of all things make;
Or else when earth and sky——
Some of the heavenly seed remain’d, which sown
By Japhet, and with wat’ry substance mix’d,
Was form’d into the image of the gods.
And when all creatures to the earth were prone,
Man had an upright form to view the heavens,
And was commanded to behold the stars.”
   Here you see man has the dominion over all inferior creatures given him; and also that he was made after the image of God, or of divine beings. To the same purpose are the words of Eurysus the Pythagorean, in his book of fortune: “His (that is, man’s) tabernacle, or body, is like that of other creatures, because it is composed of the same materials; but worked by the best Workman, who framed it according to the pattern of himself.” Where the word σκῆνος is put for body, as in Wisdom, chap. ix. ver. 15. and 2 Cor. v. 1. and 4. To which way be added that of Horace, who calls the soul
   ——“A particle of breath divine.”
   And Virgil,
   “An æthereal sense.”
   And that of Juvenal, sat. xv.
   ——“Who alone
Have ingenuity to be esteem’d,
As capable of things divine, and fit
For arts; which sense we men from heav’n derive,
And which no other creature is allowed;
For He that framed us both did only give
To them the breath of life, but us a soul.”
   And those remarkable things relating hereto, in Plato’s Phædon and Alcibiades. Cicero, in the second book of the nature of the gods, says thus: “For when he (that is, God) left all other creatures to feed on the ground, he made man upright, to excite him to view the heavens, to which he is related, as being his former habitation.” And Sallust, in the beginning of the Catiline war: “All men, that desire to exceed other animals, ought earnestly to endeavour not to pass away their days in silence, like the beasts, which nature has made prone, and slaves to their bellies.” And Pliny, b. ii. c. 20. “The never enough to be admired Hipparchus; than whom none more acknowledged the relation betwixt man and the stars, and who considered our souls as a part of the heavens.” That all things were 30 31 32made by the word of God, is asserted by Epicharmus,³⁹³⁹   ”Man’s reason is derived from that of God.” and the Platonists;⁴⁰⁴⁰   Amelius the Platonic: “And this is that reason, or word, by which all things that ever were, were made; according to the opinion of Heraclitus. That very Word, or Reason, the barbarian means, which set all things in order in the beginning, and which was with God before that order, and by which every thing was made, and in which was every creature; the fountain of life and being.” The barbarian he here speaks of is St. John the evangelist, a little later than whose time Amelius lived. Eusebius has preserved his words in the eleventh book and nineteenth chapter of his Preparation; and Cyril in his eighth book against Julian. St. Austin mentions the same place of Amelius, in his tenth book, and 29th chapter, of tile city of God, and in the eighth book of his confessions. And Tertullian against the Gentiles: “It is evident (says he) that with your wise men, the Λόγος, Logos, Word or Reason, was the Maker of the universe; for Zeno would have this Word to he the Creator, by whom all things were disposed in their formation.” This place of Zeno was in his book περὶ οὐσίας, concerning being, where he calls the τὸ ποιοῦν, the efficient cause, Λόγος, the Word, or Reason; and in this he was followed by Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Archedemus, and Posidonius, as we are told by Laërtius in his life of Zeno. Seneca, in his lxvth epistle, calls it the “Reason which formeth every thing.” And Chalcidius to Timæus says, “That the reason of God is God himself, who has a regard to human affairs, and who is the cause of men’s living well and happily, if they do not neglect the gift bestowed on them by the most high God.” And in another place, speaking of Moses, he has these words: Who is clearly of opinion, “that the heaven and earth were made by the Divine Wisdom preceding: and that then the Divine Wisdom was the foundation of the universe.” and before them, by the most ancient writer, I do not mean of those hymns which go under his 33name, but of those verses which were of old called Orpheus’s;⁴¹⁴¹   The verses are these:—
   “I swear by that first word the Father spake,
When the foundation of the earth was laid.”
   They are extant in the admonition to the Greeks, among the works of Julian: as also these:—
   ” I speak to those I ought; begone, profane,
Away: but, O Musæus, hearken thou,
Thou offspring of the moon; I speak the truth:
Let not vain thoughts the comfort of thy life
Destroy; the Divine Reason strictly view,
And fix it in thy mind to imitate;
Behold the Great Creator of the world,
Who’s only perfect, and did all things make,
And is in all; though we with mortal eyes
Cannot discern him; but he looks on us.”
   These we find in the admonition to the Greeks; as also in a book concerning the monarchy of the world, in the works of Justin Martyr; in Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. 5. and in the xiiith book of Eusebius’s Gospel Preparation, from Aristobulus. not because Orpheus composed them, but because they contained his doctrines. And Empedocles⁴²⁴²   Of whom Laërtitis says, “That he affirmed the sun to be a great heap of fire.” And he that wrote the opinions of the philosophers has these words: “Empedocles said, that the æther was first separated, then the fire, and after that the earth; the superficies of which being compressed by its violent motion, the water burst out; from which the air was exhaled; that the heavens were composed of æther, and the sun of fire.” And, chap. 20. Empedocles affirms, “There are two suns, one the original, and the other the apparent.” And Philolaus, as we there also read, says, “That the sun is of the same nature as glass, receiving its splendour from the fire that is in the world, and transmitting its light to us.” Anaxagoras, Democritus, Metrodorus, affirmed the sun to be a certain mass of fire; as you find it in the same place. And Democritus shews, that these were the roost ancient opinions, as Laërtius relates. acknowledged, that the sun was not the original light, but the receptacle of light, the storehouse and vehicle of fire, 34as the ancient Christians express it. Aratus⁴³⁴³   Aratus:—
   “As far as the dire gulf Eridanus,
Under the footstool of the gods extends.” and Catullus⁴⁴⁴⁴   Catullus, the interpreter of Callimachus, introduces Berenice’s hair, speaking after this manner:
   “Tho’ in the night the gods upon me tread.” thought the divine residence was above the starry orb; in which, Homer says, there is a continual light. Thales⁴⁵⁴⁵   As we see in Diogenes Laërtius; and Herodotus and Leander assert him to have been originally a Phœnician. taught, from the ancient schools, that God was the oldest of beings, because not begotten; that the world was most beautiful, because the workmanship of God; that darkness was before light, which latter we find in Orpheus’s verses,⁴⁶⁴⁶   In his hymn to night:
   “I sing the night, parent of men and gods.” and Hesiod;⁴⁷⁴⁷   Whose verses upon this subject are cited above. whence it was, that the nations, who were most tenacious of ancient customs, reckoned the time by nights.⁴⁸⁴⁸   The Numidians in Libya “reckon their time not by days, but by nights,” says Nicolaus Damascenes: and Tacitus affirms of the Germans, “that they do not, like us, compute the number of the days, but of the nights; so they date their decrees and citations; night seems to begin the day with them.” See the Speculum Saxonicum, book i. art. 3, 67. and in other places. So likewise the learned Lindenbrogius, upon the word Night, in his Vocabulary of the German laws. The neighbouring people of Bohemia and Poland preserve this custom to this very day, and the Gauls used it of old. Cæsar, in his sixth book of the Gallic war, says, “That all their distances of time were reckoned, not by the number of days, but of nights.” And Pliny, concerning the druids, in the sixteenth book of his natural history, says, “The moon with them began their months and years.” It is a known custom amongst the Hebrews. Gellius, in his third book, chap. ii. adds the Athenians, who in this matter were the scholars of the Phœnicians. Anaxagoras affirmed, that all things 35were regulated by the Supreme Mind:⁴⁹⁴⁹   His words are quoted above, which are to be found in Laërtius, the writer of the opinions of the philosophers, and others: as are also the verses of Timon concerning his opinion. Aratus,⁵⁰⁵⁰   In the beginning of his Phænomena:—
   “Begin with Jupiter, whose essence is
Ineffable by mortal man, whose presence
Does all things fill; assemblies, courts, and marts,
The deep abyss, and ports, are fill’d with him.
We all enjoy him, all his offspring are,
Whose nature is benign to man; who stirs
Them up to work, spewing the good of life.
’Tis he appoints the time to plough and sow,
And reap the fruitful harvest.——
’Twas he that in the heavens fix’d the stars,
Allotting each his place, to teach the year,
And to declare the fate us men attends;
That all things are by certain laws decreed.
Him therefore let us first and last appease,
O Father, the great help we mortals have.”
   That by Jupiter we are here to understand God, the true Maker of the world, and all things in it, St. Paul chews us in the seventeenth chapter of the Acts, ver. 28. And we learn from Lactantius, that Ovid ended his Phænomena with these verses:—
   “Such, both in number and in form, did God
Upon the heavens place, and give in charge
To enlighten the thick darkness of the night.”
   And Chalcidius to Timæus “To which thing the Hebrews agree, who affirm that God was the adorner of the world, and appointed the sun to rule the day, and the moon to govern the night; and so disposed the rest of the stars, as to limit the times and seasons of the year, and to be signs of the productions of things.” that the stars were made by God; Virgil,⁵¹⁵¹   In the sixth book of his Æneid, which Servius says was composed from many of the ancient Greek writings:—
   “At first the heav’n and earth, and wat’ry seas,
The moon’s bright orb, and all the glittering stars,
Were fed and nourish’d by a Power Divine:
For the whole world is acted by a sun,
Which throughly penetrates it: whence mankind,
And beasts, and birds, have their original;
And monsters in the deep produc’d: the seed
Of each is a divine and heavenly flame.”
   Which may be explained by those in his Georgics, iv.
   “By such examples taught, and by such marks,
Some have affirm’d that bees themselves partake
Of the celestial mind, and breath ethereal;
For God pervades the sea, and earth, and heavens;
Whence cattle, herds, men, and all kinds of beasts,
Derive the slender breath of fleeting life.” from the Greeks, that life was infused into things by the Spirit of God; 36Hesiod,⁵²⁵²   In his poem upon Labour and Days:—
   “Then ordered Mulciber, without delay,
To mix the earth and water, and infuse
A human voice.” Homer,⁵³⁵³   Iliad, viii.
   “You all to earth and water must return.”
   For all things return from whence they came. Euripides in his Hipsipyle (as Stobæus tells us in the title) uses this argument, for bearing patiently the events of things; which is transcribed by Tully in his third book of Tusculan questions:—
   ——“All which in vain us mortals vex:
Earth must return to earth; for fate ordains
That life, like corn, must be cut off in all.”
   To the same purpose, Euripides in his Supplicants:—
   “Permit the dead to be entomb’d in earth,
From whence we all into this body came;
And when we die, the spirit goes to air,
To earth the body; for we can possess
Life only for a time; the earth demands
It back again.”
   All which, you see, exactly agree with Moses, Gen. iii. 19. and Solomon, Eccl. xii. 7. and Callimachus,⁵⁴⁵⁴   Who, in his Scazon, calls man Prometheus’s clay. Of this clay we find mention made in Juvenal and Martial. To which we may add this place of Censorinus: “Democritus, the Abderite, was of opinion, that men were first formed of clay and water; and Epicurus was much of the same mind.” that man was formed 37of clay; lastly, Maximus Tyrius asserts, that it was a constant tradition received by all nations, that there was one supreme God, the cause of all things.⁵⁵⁵⁵   In his first dissertation: “Notwithstanding the great discord, confusion, and debates that are amongst men; the whole world agree in this one constant law and opinion, that God is the sole King and Father of all; but that there are many other gods, who are Ida sons, and share in his government. This is affirmed by the Greek and the barbarian; by him who dwells in the continent, and by hint who lives on the sea-shore; by the wise and by the foolish.” To which may be added those places cited in the second book attar and peace, chap. xx. § 45. And that of Antisthenes, related by Tully in his first book of the nature of the gods: “that there are many vulgar gods, but there is but one natural God.” And Lactantius, book i. chap. 5. adds, from the same Antisthenes, that he is
   “The Maker of the whole world.”
   So likewise Sophocles:—
   “There is really but one God,
The Maker of heaven and earth,
And sea, and winds.”
   To which may be added that place of Varro, cited by St. Austin, in the fourth book, and chap. 31. of his City of God. And we learn from Josephus,⁵⁶⁵⁶   Against Appion, about the cud of the second book, where he says, “There is no city, Greek or barbarian, in which the custom of resting on the seventh day is not preserved, as it is amongst the Jews.” Philo,⁵⁷⁵⁷   Concerning the seventh day: “It is a festival celebrated not only in one city or country, but throughout the whole world.” Tibullus,⁵⁸⁵⁸   ”The seventh day is sacred to the Jews.” Clemens Alexandrinus,⁵⁹⁵⁹   Who, in his Strom. v. quotes out of Hesiod, “that the seventh day was sacred.” And the like out of Homer and Callimachus. To which may be subjoined what Eusebius has taken out of Aristobulus, book xiii. chap. 12. “Theophilas Antiochenus, b. ii. to Autolychus, concerning the seventh day, which is distinguished by all men.” And Suetonius, in his Tiberius, xxxii. “Diogenes the grammarian uses to dispute at Rhodes upon the sabbath day.”—(The seventh day of the month ought not to be confounded with the last day of the week. See what John Selden has remarked upon this subject, in his book of the laws of nature and nations, book chap. 17. Le Clerc. and 38Lucian,⁶⁰⁶⁰   Who tells us in his Paralogist, “That boys were used to play on the seventh day.” (for I need not mention the Hebrews), that the memory of the seven days’ work was preserved, not only among the Greeks and Italians, by honouring the seventh day; but also amongst the Celtæ and Indians, who all measured the time by weeks;⁶¹⁶¹   As is evident by the names of the days among the different nations of the Celtæ, viz. Germans, Gauls, and Britons. Helmoldus tells us the same of the Sclavonians, book i. chap. 84. as we learn from Philostratus,⁶²⁶²   Book iii. chap. 13. speaking of the Indians. Dion Cassius,⁶³⁶³   Book xxxvii. “The day called Saturn’s.” Where he adds, that the custom of computing the time by weeks was derived from the Egyptians to all mankind. And that this was not a new, but a very ancient custom, Herodotus tells us in his second book: to which may be added Isidore concerning the Romans, book v. ch. 30. and 33. and Justin Martyr; and also the most ancient names of the days.⁶⁴⁶⁴   See the Oracle, and Orpheus’s verses in Scaliger’s Prolegomena to his emendation of times.—(I suspect that the foundation of weeks was rather from the seven planets, than from the creation of the world in seven days. Le Clerc.) The Egyptians tell us, that at first met led their lives in great simplicity,⁶⁵⁶⁵   See what we have said of this matter, book ii. sect. 12. concerning the right of war, and the notes belonging to it. their bodies being naked;⁶⁶⁶⁶   Whose opinion Diodorus Siculus thus relates: “The first men lived very hardy, before the conveniencies of life were found out; being accustomed to go naked, and wanting dwellings and fires; and being wholly ignorant of the food of civilized nations.” And Plato, in his politics: “God their governor fed them, being their keeper; as man, who is a more divine creature, feeds the inferior creatures.” And a little after: “They fed naked and without garments in the open air.” And Dicearchus the peripatetic, cited both by Porphyry, in his fourth book against eating living creatures, and to the same sense by Varro, concerning country affairs: “The ancients, who were nearest to the gods, were of an excellent disposition, and led so good lives, that they were called a golden race.” whence arose the poet’s fiction of 39the golden age, famous among the Indians, as Strabo remarks.⁶⁷⁶⁷   Book xv. where he brings in Calanus the Indian speaking thus: “Of old we met every where with barley, wheat, and meal, as we do now-a-days with dust. The fountains flowed, some with water, some with milk; and likewise some with honey, some with wine, and some with oil. But men, through fullness and plenty, fell into wickedness; which condition Jupiter abhorring, altered the state of things, and ordered them a life of labour.” Maimonides⁶⁸⁶⁸   In his guide to the doubting, part iii. chap. 29. takes notice, that the history of Adam, of Eve, of the tree, and of the serpent, was extant amongst the idolatrous Indians in his time:⁶⁹⁶⁹   In those places which Philo Biblius has translated out of Sanchuniathon. The Greek word πρωτόγονος, first-born, is the same with the Hebrew אדם Adam; and the Greek word αἰὼν, Age, is the same with the Hebrew word חוה Chavah, Eve. The first men found out the fruit of trees. And in the most ancient Greek mysteries, they cried out Εὗα, Eva, and at the same time shewed a serpent. Which is mentioned by Hesychius, Clemens in his exhortations, and Plutarch in the life of Alexander. Chalcidius, to Timæus, has these words: “That, as Moses says, God forbade the first man to eat the fruit of those trees by which the knowledge of good and evil should steal into their minds.” And in another place; “To this the Hebrews agree, when they say, that God gave to man a soul by a divine breath, which they call reason, or a rational soul; but to dumb creatures, and wild beasts of the forest, one void of reason: the living creatures and beasts being, by the command of God, scattered over the face of the earth; amongst which was that serpent who, by his evil persuasions, deceived the first of mankind.” and there are many witnesses in our age,⁷⁰⁷⁰   See, amongst others, Ferdinand Mendesius de Pinto. who testify that the same is still to be found amongst the heathen dwelling in Peru, 40and the Philippine islands, people belonging to the same India; the name of Adam amongst the Brachmans; and that it was reckoned six thousand years since the creation of the world, by those of Siam.⁷¹⁷¹   What Simplicius relates out of Porphyry, comment, xvi. upon book ii. concerning the heavens, agrees exactly with this number; that the observations collected at Babylon, which Callisthenes sent to Aristotle, were to that time cm to CIƆ IƆ CCCCIII. [1903], which is not far from the flute of the deluge. Berosus, in his history of Chaldea; Manethos, in his of Egypt; Hierom, in his of Phœnicia; Hestiæus, Hecatæus, Hillanicus, in theirs of Greece; and Hesiod among the poets,⁷²⁷²   Josephus, in the first book, chap. 4, of his ancient history, quotes the testimony of all these writers, whose books were extant in his time; and besides these, Acusilaus, Ephorus, and Nicolaus Damascenus. Servius, in his notes upon the eighth book of Virgil’s Æneid, remarks, that the people of Arcadia lived to three hundred years. all assert, that the lives of those who descended from the first men were almost a thousand years in length; which is the less incredible, because the historians of many nations (particularly Pausanius⁷³⁷³   In his Laconics, he mentions the bones of men, of a more than ordinary bigness, which were shewn in the temple of Æsculapius at the city of Asepus: and, in the first of his Eliacs, of a bone taken out of the sea, which aforetime was kept at Piso, and thought to have been one of Pelops’s. and Philostratus⁷⁴⁷⁴   In the beginning of his Heroics, he says, that many bodies of giants were discovered in Pallene, by showers of rain and earthquakes. amongst the Greeks, and Pliny⁷⁵⁷⁵   Book vii. chap. 16. “Upon the bursting of a mountain in Crete by an earthquake, there was found a body standing upright, which was reported by some to have been the body of Orion, by others the body of Eetion. Orestes’s body, when it was commanded by the oracle to be digged up, is reported to have been seven cubits long. And, almost a thousand years ago, the poet Homer continually complained that men’s bodies were less than of old.” And Solinus, chap. i. “Were not all who were born in that age less than their parents? And the story of Orestes’s funeral testifies the bigness of the ancients, whose bones, when they were digged up in the fifty-eighth Olympiad, at Tegea, by the advice of the oracle, are related to have been seven cubits in length. And other writings, which give a credible relation of ancient matters, affirm this, that in the war of Crete, when the rivers had been so high as to overflow and break down their banks, after the flood was abated, upon the cleaving of the earth there was found a human body of three and thirty feet long; which L. Flaccus the legate, and Metellus himself, being very desirous of seeing, were much surprised to have the satisfaction of seeing what they did not believe when they heard.” See Austin’s fifteenth book, chap. 11. of the city of Cod, concerning the cheek tooth of a man, which he himself saw. 41amongst the Romans) relate, that men’s bodies, upon opening their sepulchres, were found to be much larger in old time.⁷⁶⁷⁶   Josephus, book v. chap. 2. of his ancient history; “There remains to this day some of the race of the giants, who, by reason of the bulk and figure of their bodies, so different from other men, are wonderful to see or hear of: their bones are now shewn, far exceeding the belief of the vulgar.” Gabinius, in his history of Mauritania, said, that Antæus’s bones were found by Sertorius, which, joined together, were sixty cubits long. Phlegon Trallianus, in his ninth chapter of wonders, mentions the digging up of the head of Ida, which was three times as big as that of an ordinary woman. And he adds also, that there were many bodies found in Dalmatia, whose arms exceeded sixteen cubits. And the same man relates out of Theopompus, that there were found in the Cimmerian Bosphorus a heap of human bones twenty-four cubits in length. And there is extant a book of the same Phlegon, concerning long life, which is worth reading.—(That in many places of old time, as the present, there were men of a very large stature, or such as exceeded others some few feet, is not very hard to believe; but that they should all of them have been bigger, I can no more believe, than that the trees were taller, or the channels of the rivers deeper. There is the same proportion between all these, and things of the like kind, now, as there was formerly, they answering to one another, so that there is no reason to think they have undergone any change. See Theodore Riekius’s oration about giants. Le Clerc.) And Catullus,⁷⁷⁷⁷   In his epithalamium on Peleus and Thetis:—    “But when the earth was stain’d with wickedness
And lust, and justice fled from every breast,
Then brethren vilely shed each others blood,
And parents ceas’d to mourn their children’s death;
The father wish’d the funeral of his soul;
The son to enjoy the father’s relic wish’d:
The impious mother, yielding to the child,
Fear’d not to stain the temple of the gods.
Thus right and wrong, by furious passion mix’d,
Drove from us the divine propitious mind.” after many of the Greeks, 42relates, that divine visions were made to men before their great and manifold crimes did, as it were, hinder God, and those spirits that attend him, from holding any correspondence with men.⁷⁸⁷⁸   Of this, see those excellent things said by Plutarch in his Isis; Maximus Tyrius in his first and sixteenth dissertations, and Julian’s hymn to the sun. The name of angels is used, when they treat of this matter, not only by the Greek interpreters of the Old Testament, but also by Labeus, Aristides, Porphyry, Jamblicus, Chalcidius, and by Hostanes, who was older than any of them, quoted by Minutius: the fore-mentioned Chalcidius relates an assertion of Heraclitus, that such as deserved it were forewarned by the instruction of the divine powers. We almost every where, in the Greek⁷⁹⁷⁹   Homer, Iliad ix. and Hesiod, in his Labours. To this may be referred the wars of the gods, mentioned by Plato in his second republic; and those distinct and separate governments taken notice of by the same Plato, in his third book of laws. and Latin⁸⁰⁸⁰   See the first book of Ovid’s metamorphoses, and the fourth book of Lucan, and Seneca’s third book of natural questions, quest. 30. where he says concerning the deluge, “That the beasts also perished, into whose nature men were degenerated.” historians, meet with the savage life of the giants, Mentioned by Moses. And it is very remarkable concerning the deluge, that the memory of almost all nations ends in the history of it, even those nations which were unknown till our forefathers discovered them: so that Varro calls all that the unknown time.⁸¹⁸¹   Thus Censorinus: “Now I come to treat of that space of time which Varro calls historical. For he makes three distinctions of time; the first from the creation of man to the first flood, which, because we are ignorant of it, is called the unknown. The second, from the first flood to the first Olympiad; which is called the fabulous, because of the many fabulous stories related in it. The third, from the first Olympiad to our time, which is called the historical, because the things done in it are related in a true history.” The time which Varro calls unknown, the Hebrew rabbins, call void. Philo, in his book of the eternity of the world, remarks, that the shells found on the mountains are a sign of the universal deluge. And all those things which 43we read in the poets, wrapped up in fables, (a liberty they allow themselves), are delivered by the ancient writers according to truth and reality, that is, agreeable to Moses; as you may see in Berosus’s⁸²⁸²   Concerning whom Josephus says thus, in his first book against Appion “This Berosus, following the most ancient writings, relates, in the same manner as Moses, the history of the flood, the destruction of mankind, the ark or chest in which Noah, the father of mankind, was preserved, by its resting on the top of the mountains of Armenia.” After having related the history of the deluge, Berosus adds these words, which we find in the same Josephus, book i. and chap. 4. of his ancient history: “It is reported that part of the ship now remains in Armenia, on the Gordyæan mountains, and that some bring pitch from thence, which they use for a charm.” history of Chaldea, Abydenus’s⁸³⁸³   Eusebius has preserved the place in the ninth book of his preparation, chap. 12. and Cyril in his first book against Julian. “After whom reigned many others, and then Sisithrus, to whom Saturn signified there should be an abundance of rain on the fifteenth day of the month Desius, and commanded him to lay up all his writings in Heliopolis. a city of the Sipparians; which when Sisithrus had done, he sailed immediately into Armenia, and found it true as the god had declared to him. On the third day after the waters abated, he sent out birds to try if the water was gone off any part of the earth; but they finding a vest sea, and having no where to rest, returned back to Sisithrus: in the same manner did others: and again the third time, (when their wings were daubed with mud). Then the gods took him from among men; and the ship came into Armenia, the wood of which the people there use for a charm.” Sisithrus, and Ogyges, and Deucalion, are all names signifying the same thing in other languages, as Noah does in the Hebrew, in which Moses wrote; who so expressed proper names, that the Hebrews might understand the meaning of them: for instance, Alexander the historian, writing Isaac in Greek, calls him Γέλωτα, Laughter, as we learn from Eusebius: and many such like we meet with among the historians as in Philo concerning rewards and punishments; “The Greeks call him Deucalion, the Chaldeans Noach, in whose time the great flood happened.” It is the tradition of the Egyptians, an Diodorus testifies in his first book, that the universal deluge was that of Deucalion. Pliny says it reached as far as Italy, book iii. chap. 14. But, to return to the translation of names into other languages, there is a remarkable place in Plato’s Critias concerning it: “Upon the entrance of this discourse, it may be necessary (says he) to premise the reason, lest you be surprised when you hear the names of barbarians in Greek. When Solon put this relation into verse, he inquired Into the signification of the names, and found, that the first Egyptians, who wrote of these matters, translated them into their own language; and he likewise, searching out their true meaning, turned them into our language.” The words of Abydenus agree with those of Alexander the historian, which Cyril has preserved in his fore-mentioned first book against Julian: “After the death of Otiartes, his son Xisuthrus reigned eighteen years, in whose time, they say, the great deluge was. It is reported that Xisuthrus was preserved by Saturn’s foretelling him what was to come; and that it was convenient for him to build an ark, that birds and creeping things, and beasts, might sail with him in it.” The most high God is named by the Assyrians and other nations from that particular star of the seven (to use Tacitus’s words) by which mankind are governed, which is moved in the highest orb, and with the greatest force: or certainly the Syriac word, איל Il, which signifies God, was therefore translated Κρόνος Kronos, by the Greek interpreters, because he was called איל Il by the Syrians. Philo Biblius, the interpreter of Sanchuniathon, hath these words: “Ilus, who is called Saturn.” He is quoted by Eusebius: in whom it immediately follows from the same Philo, “that Kronos was the same the Phœnicians call Israel;” but the mistake was in the transcriber, who put Ἰσραὴλ Israel, for ἵλ Il, which many times amongst the Greek Christians is the contraction of Ἰσραὴλ; whereas ἵλ is, as we have observed, what the Syrians call איל Il, and the Hebrews אל El.— (It ought not to be overlooked, that in this history, Deucalion, who was the same person as Noah, is called ἀνὴρ πύῤῥας, that is, איש אדמה a man of the earth, that is, a husbandman. Sac my notes upon Gen. ix. 20. Le Clerc.) of Assyria, who mentions the dove that was sent 50out of the ark;⁸⁴⁸⁴   In his book where he inquires which have most cunning, water or land animals: “They say Deucalion’s dove, which he sent out of the ark, discovered at its return that the storms were abated, and the heavens clear.” It is to be observed, both in this place of Plutarch’s, and in that of Alexander the historian, as well as in the book of Nicolaus Damascenes, and the writers made use of by Theophilus Antiochenes in his third book, that the Greek word λάρναξ lrnax, answers to the Hebrew word תבה tebah, and so Josephus translates it. and in Plutarch from the Greeks; and in 45Lucian,⁸⁵⁸⁵   In his book concerning the goddess of Syria, where having begun to treat of the very ancient temple of Hierapolis, he adds: “They say this temple was founded by Deucalion, the Scythian, that Deucalion in whose days the flood of water happened. I have heard in Greece the story of this Deucalion from the Greeks themselves, which is thus: the present generation of men is not the original one, for all that generation perished; and the men which now are came from a second stock, the whole multitude of them descended from Deucalion. Now, concerning the first race of men, they relate thus: they were very obstinate, and did very wicked things; and had no regard to oaths, had no hospitality or charity in them; upon which account many calamities befel them. For on a sudden the earth sent forth abundance of water, great showers of rain fell, the rivers overflowed exceedingly, and the sea overspread the earth, so that all was turned into water, and every man perished; Deucalion was only saved alive, to raise up another generation, because of prudence and piety. And he was preserved in this manner: he, and his wives, and his children, entered into a large ark, which he had prepared; and after them went in bears, and horses, and lions, and serpents, and all other kinds of living creatures that fed upon the earth, two and two; he received them all in, neither did they hurt him, but were very familiar with him, by a divine influence. Thus they sailed in the same ark, as long as the water remained on the earth. This is the account the Greeks give of Deucalion. Now concerning what happened afterwards: There was a strange story related by the inhabitants of Hierapolis, of a great hole in the earth in that country, which received all the water; after which, Deucalion built an altar, and reared a temple to Juno over the hole. I saw the hole myself; it is but a small one, under the temple; whether it was larger formerly, I know not; I am sure this which I saw was but small. To preserve this story, they perform this ceremony: twice every year water is brought from the sea into the temple; and not only the priests, but all the people of Syria and Arabia, fetch it; many go even from the river Euphrates as far as tile sea to fetch water, which they pour out in the temple, and it goes into the hole, which, though it be but small, holds a vast quantity of water: when they do this, they say it was a rite instituted by Deucalion, in memory of that calamity, and his preservation. This is the ancient story of this temple.” who says, that in Hierapolis of Syria there was remaining a most ancient history of the ark, and of the preserving a few not only of mankind, but also of other 46living creatures. The same history was extant also in Molo,⁸⁶⁸⁶   Eusebius relates his words in his ninth book of the Gospel Preparation, chap. 19. “At the deluge, the man and his children that escaped came out of Armenia, being driven from his own country by the inhabitants; and, having passed through the country between, went into the mountainous part of Syria, which was then uninhabited.” and in Nicolaus Damascenus;⁸⁷⁸⁷   Josephus gives us his words, out of the ninety-sixth book of his universal history, in the fore-cited place: “There is above the city Minyas, (which Strabo and Pliny call Milyas), a huge mountain in Armenia called Batis, on which they say a great many were saved from the flood, particularly one, who was carried to the top of it by an ark; the relics of the wood of which were preserved a great while: I believe it was the same man that Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, mentions in his history.” To these writers we may add Jerom the Egyptian, who wrote the affairs of Phœnicia and Mnaseas, mentioned by Josephus. And perhaps Eupolemus, which Eusebius quotes out of Alexander the historian, in his Gospel Preparation, book ix. chap. 17. which latter names the ark, which we also find in the history of Deucalion in Apollodorus: and many Spaniards⁸⁸⁸⁸   See Josephus Acosta, and Antonius Herrera. affirm, that in several parts of America, as Cuba, Mechoacana, Nicaraga, is preserved the memory of the deluge, the saving alive of animals, especially the raven and dove; and the deluge itself in that part called Golden Castile. That remark of Pliny’s,⁸⁹⁸⁹   Book v. chap. xiii. Mela and Solinus agree with Pliny. Compare it with that which we have quoted out of Abydenus. that Joppa was built before the flood, discovers what part 47of the earth men inhabited before the flood. The place where the ark rested after the deluge, on the Gordyæan mountains,⁹⁰⁹⁰   Which Moses calls Ararath; the Chaldean interpreters translate it Kardu; Josephus, Cordiæan; Curtius, Cordæan; Strabo writes it Gordiæan, book xvi. and Pliny, book vi. and Ptolemæus.—(These, and what follows in relation to the sacred geography and the founders of nations, since these of Grotius were published, are with great pains, and much more accuracy, searched into by Sam. Bochart, in his sacred geography, which add weight to Grotius’s arguments. Le Clerc.) is evident from the constant tradition of the Armenians, from all past ages, down to this very day.⁹¹⁹¹   Theophilus Antiochenus says, in his third book, that the relics of the ark were shewn in his time. And Epiphanius, against the Nazarites: “The relics of Noah’s ark are shewn at this time, in the region of the Cordiæans:” and Chrysostom, in his oration of perfect love. And Isidore, book xiv. chap. 8. of his antiquities: “Ararath, a mountain in Armenia, on which, histories testify the ark rested after the deluge; where at this day are to be seen some marks of the wood.” We may add the words out of Haiton the Armenian, ch. 9. “There is a mountain in Armenia, higher than any other in the whole world, which is commonly called Ararath, on the top of which mountain the ark first rested after the deluge.” See the Nubian geographer, and Benjamin’s Itinerary. Japhet,⁹²⁹²   It is the very same word יפת Japheth; for the same letter פ is by some pronounced like π p, by others φ ph; and the like difference is now preserved among the Germans and Dutch. Jerom upon Daniel has observed this of the Hebrew letter. the father of the Europeans, and, from him, Ion, or, as they formerly pronounced it, Javon⁹³⁹³   For ἰάονες iaones is often found amongst the ancient writers. The Persian in Aristophanes’s play, called Acharnenses, pronounces it ἰαοναῦ iaonau. Now it was a very ancient custom to put a digamma between two vowels, which afterwards began to be wrote by a V, formerly thus, F. In like manner, that which was αὐὼς auos, is now ἀὼς aos, and ἡὼς eos, ταυὼς tauos, a peacock; τοὺς Ἒλληνας κάλουσιν ἰαῦνας, the Greeks are called iaunas. Suidas. of the Greeks, and Hammon⁹⁴⁹⁴   the Greeks sometimes render the Hebrew letter ח Cheth by an aspirate, and sometimes omit it; as חצר־מות Chatzarmuth, ἈδράμυττοςAdramyttos, or Ἁδράμυττος Hadramyttos; חכמת Chachmoth, ἀχμὼθ Achmuth, in Irenæus and others: חברה Chabrah, a companion, by the ancient Greeks ἄβρα abra; חיה Chajah, αἰὼν aion, an age. הנה Hanno or Anno; חני־בעל Hannibal or Annibal, חצר־בעל Hasdrubal or Asdrubal; חשים Chashim; ἀξουμῖται axoumitai, for ων on is a Greek ending. This person is transformed, not only by the Lybians, but also by many other nations, into the star Jupiter, as a god. Lucan, book ix.
   “Jupiter Ammon is the only god
Amongst the happy Arabs, and amongst
The Indians and Ethiopians.”
   And the sacred scripture puts Egypt amongst them. Psalm lxxviii. 51. cv. 23, 27. cvi. 22. Jerom, in his Hebrew traditions on Genesis, has these words, “From whom Egypt, at this very day, is called the country of Ham, in the Egyptian language.” of the Africans, are names to be seen in 48Moses; and Josephus⁹⁵⁹⁵   He says, Γομαρεῖς Gomareis, the Galatians, is derived from גמר Gomar, where Pliny’s town Comara is. The people of Comara we find in the first book of Mela. The Scythians are derived from מגוגMagog, by whom the city Scythopolis in Syria was built, and the other city Magog; Pliny, book v. chap. 23. which is called by others Hierapolis and Bambyce. It is evident that the Medes are derived from מדי Medi; and, as we have already observed, Javones, Iaones, Iones, from יוזJaven. Josephus says, the Iberians in Asia come from תבל Thebal, in the neighbourhood of whom Ptolemy places the city of Thabal, as preserving the marks of its ancient original. The city Mazaca, mentioned by him, comes from משד Masach, which we find in Strabo, book xii. and in Pliny, book vi. 3. and in Ammianus Marcellinus, book xx. Add to this the Moschi mentioned by Strabo, book xi. and in the first and third book of Mela, whom Pliny calls Moscheni, book vi. chap. 9. and we find in them and Pliny the Moschican mountains. Josephus and others agree, that the Thracians were derived from תירס Tiras, and the word itself shews it; especially if we observe, that the Greek letter ξ x at first answered to the Syriac letter ס s, as the place of it shews. Concerning those that are derived from אשכנץAschanaz, the place is corrupt in Josephus; but without doubt Ascania, a part of Phrygia and Mytia, mentioned in Homer, comes from thence; concerning which see Strabo, book xii. and Pliny, book v. chap. 32. The Ascanian lake, and the river flowing from it, we find in Strabo, book xiv. and in Pliny’s fore-cited fifth book, chap. 32. The Ascanian harbour is in Pliny, book v. chap. 30. and the Ascanian islands also, book iv. chap. 12. and book v. chap. 31. Josephus says, the Paphlagonians are derived from ריפחRiphath, by some called Riphatæans, where Mela, in his first book, puts the Riphacians. The same Josephus tells us, that the αἰολεῖς aioleis, come from אלישה Alishah; and the Jerusalem paraphrast agrees with him, in naming the Greeks Æolians, putting the part for the whole; nor is it much unlike Hella, the name of the country. The same Josephus also says, that the Cilicians are derived from תרשיש Tarshish, and proves it from the city Tarsus; for it happens in many places, that the names of the people are derived from the names of cities. We have before hinted that Κίττιον Kittion, is derived from כתיםChitim. The Ethiopians are called Chusæans by themselves and their neighbours, from כושChush, now; as Josephus observed they were in his time; from whence there is a river so called by Ptolemy; and, in the Arabian geographer, there are two cities which retain the same name. So likewise Μισὠρ in Philo Biblius is derived from מצריםMitzraim; those which the Greeks call Egyptians, being called by themselves and their neighbours Mesori; and the name of one of their months is Μεσιρὶ, Mesiri. Cedrenus calls the country itself Μέστσα, and Josephus rightly conjectures, that the river in Mauritania is derived from פית Phut. Pliny mentions the same river, book v. c. 1. “Phut, and the neighbouring Phutensian country, is so called to this day.” Jerom, in his Hebrew traditions on Genesis, says, it is not far from Fesa, the name remaining even now. The חנעו Chenaan, in Moses, is contracted by Sanchuniathon, and from him by Philo Biblius, into Χνᾶ Chua; you will find it in Eusebius’s Preparation, book i. chap. 10. and the country is called so. Stephanus, of cities, says, “Chna was so called by the Phœnicians.” And St. Austin, in his book of expositions on the epistle to the Romans, says, in his time, if the country people that lived at Hippo were asked who they were, they answered, Canaanites. And in that place of Eupolemus, cited by Eusebius, Prepar. ix. 17. the Canaanites are called Mestraimites. Ptolemy’s Regema, in Arabia Felix, is derived from רעמה Raamah, by changing ע into γ g, as in Gomorrha and other words. Josephus deduces the Sabins from סבא Saba, a known nation, whose chief city Strabo says, book xvi. was Saba, where Josephus places the Sabateni, from סבתה Sabatah; there Pliny places the city Sobotale, book vi. chap. 28. The word להבים Lehabim, is not much different from the name of the Lybians; nor the word נפתחיםNephathim from Nepata, a city of Ethiopia, mentioned by Pliny, book vi. chap. 29. Nor Ptolemy’s Nepata, or the Pharusi in Pliny, book v. chap. 8. from פצריסיםPhatstrasim, the same as Ptolemy’s Phaurusians in Ethiopia. The city Sidon, famous in all poets and historians, comes from צידוTridon. And Ptolemy’s town Gerasa, from גרגשיGergashi: and Arca, a city of the Phœnicians, mentioned by Ptolemy and Pliny, book v. ch.18. from ערקי Arki. And Aradus, an island mentioned in Strabo, book xvi. and Pliny, book v. chap. 20. and Ptolemy in Syria, from ארודיArodi; and Amathus of Arabia, mentioned by Herodotus in his Euterpe and Thalia, from המחי Hamathi; and the Elymites, neighbours to the Medes, from עילם Eelim, mentioned by Strabo, book xvi. Pliny, book vi. ch. 25. and Livy, book xxxvii. Their descendants in Phrygia are called Elymites by Athenæus, book iv. Every one knows, that the Assyrians are derived from אשור Ashur, as the Lydians are from לודLud, from whence comes. the Latin word Ludi. Those which by the Greeks are called Syrians, from the city צור Tzur, are called Aramites to this day, from ארם Aram: for צ tz is sometimes translated τ t, and sometimes σ s,; whence the city צור Tzur, which the Greeks call Tyre, is by Ennius called Sarra, and by others Sina and Tina. Strabo, book xvi. towards the end: “The poet mentions the Arimites, whom Possidonius would have us to understand, not to be any part of Syria, or Cilicia, or any other country, but Syria itself.” And again, book xiii. ” Some mean Syrians by Arimites, whom they now call Aramites.” And in the first book: “For those we call Syrians, are by themselves called Aramites.” “The country Ausanitis, mentioned by the Seventy in Job, is derived from הוצ Hutz. Aristæus calls it Austias. And the city Cholla, placed by Ptolemy in Syria, from חול Chol; and the city Gindarus in Ptolemy, from נהר Geher; and the Gindaren people in Pliny, book v. chap. 23. in Cœlo-Syria. And the mountain Masius, not far from Nisibus, mentioned by Strabo, book xi. and Ptolemy, in Mesopotamia, is derived from מש Mash. The names יקטוJoktan, and חצרמוחHatzoramuth, and הולן Holan, are represented by the Arabian geographers under the names of Balsatjaktan, Hadramuth, and Chaulan; as the learned Capell observes. The river Ophar, and the people called Opharites, near Mæotis, Pliny, book vi. 7. If I mistake not, retain the name אופר Ophar; and those cities, which Moses mentions in this place, appear to be the most ancient by comparing of authors. Every one knows front whence Babylon is derived. ארך Arach is Aracca, placed by Ptolemy in Susiana; from whence conic the Aracæan fields in Tibullus, as the famous Salamasius, a man of vast reading, observes. Acabene, a corruption of Acadene, is derived from אכד Achad, as is probably conjectured by Franciscus Junius, a diligent interpreter of scripture, who has observed many of those things we have been speaking of. חלנה Chalnah is the town Caunisus on the river Euphrates, whose name Ammianus tells us, in his twenty-third book, continued to his time. The land שנער Senaar is the Babylonian Senaas, in Histiæus Milesus, which place Josephus has preserved in his ancient history, book i. chap. 7. and in his Chronicon; as has Eusebius in his Preparation. He wrote the affairs of Phœnicia; whom also Stephens had read. Again, צ being changed into γ g, Ptolemy from hence calls the mountain Singarus in Mesopotamia. And Pliny mentions the town Singara, book v. chap. 24. and hence the Singaranæan country in Sextus Rufus. נינוהNineveh is undoubtedly the Ninos of the Greeks, contractN1; thus, in Sardanapalus’s epitaph;—
   “I, who great Ninus rul’d, am now but dust.”
   The same name we find in Theognis, and Strabo, b. xvi. and Pliny, book vi. chap. 13. whose words are these: “Ninus was built upon the river Tigris, towards the west, a beautiful city to behold.” Lucan, book iii. “Happy Ninus, as fame goes.” The country Calachena has its name from the principal city כלה Chala: Strabo, book xi. and afterwards in the beginning of book xvi. רסן Resin is Resaina in Ammianus, book xxiii. Sidon every one knows. עוה Azzah, is without doubt rendered Gaza in Palestine, by changing, as before, the letter ע into γ g; it is mentioned by Strabo, book xvi. and Mela, book i. who calls it a large and well fortified town; and Pliny, book v. ch. 13. and book vi. chap. 28. and elsewhere. ספרהSephirah, is Heliopolis, a city of the Sipparians, in that place of Abydenus now quoted. Sippara is by Ptolemy placed in Mesopotamia. אור Ur is the castle Ur, mentioned by Ammianus, book xxv. חרן Curran is Carra, famous for the slaughter of the Crassi. and others observe the like footsteps 49in the names of other places and nations. And 50which of the poets is it, in which we do not find mention 51made of the attempt to climb the heavens?⁹⁶⁹⁶   See Homer, Odyss. 30. and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, book i.
   “The giants, by report, would heaven have storm’d.”
   See also Virgil’s first Georgic, and Lucan, book vii. It is a frequent way of speaking amongst all nations, to call those things which are raised above the common height, things reaching to heaven, as we often find in Homer, and Deut. i. 28. and ix. 1. Josephus quotes one of the Sibyls, I know not which, concerning the unaccountable building of that tower; the words are these: “When all men spoke the same language, some of them built a vast high tower, as if they would ascend up into heaven; but the gods sent a wind, and overthrew the tower, and assigned to each a particular language; and from hence the city Babylon was so called.” And Eusebius, in his Preparation, b. ix. c. 14. Cyril, book i. against Julian, quotes these words out of Abydenus: “Some say, that the first men, who sprang out of the earth, grew proud upon their great strength and bulk, and boasted that they could do more than the gods, and attempted to build a tower, where Babylon now stands; but when it came nigh the heavens, it was overthrown apon them by the gods, with the help of the winds, and the ruins are called Babylon. Men till then had but one language, but the gods divided it, and then began the war betwixt Saturn and Titan.” It is a false tradition of the Greeks, that Babylon was built by Semiramis, as Berosus tells us in his Chaldaics, and Josephus in his first book against Appion; and the same error is refuted by Julius Firmicus out of Philo Biblius, and Dorotheus Sidonius. See also what Eusebius produces out of Eupolemus, concerning the giants and the tower, in his Gospel Preparation, book ix. chap. 17. Diodorus 52Siculus,⁹⁷⁹⁷   Book xix. where he describes the lake Asphaltites: “The neighbouring country burns with fire, the ill smell of which makes the bodies of the inhabitants sickly, and not very long lived.”—(See more of this in our dissertation added to the Pentateuch concerning the burning of Sodom. Le Clerc.) Strabo,⁹⁸⁹⁸   Book xvi. after the description of the lake Asphaltites: “There are many signs of this country’s being on fire: for about Masada they shew many cragged and burnt rocks, and in many places caverns eaten in, and ground turned into ashes, drops of pitch falling from the rocks, and running waters stinking to a great distance, and their habitations overthrown; which makes credible a report amongst the inhabitants, that formerly there were. thirteen cities inhabited there, the chief of which was Sodom, so large as to be sixty furlongs round; but by earthquakes and fire breaking out, and by hot waters mixed with bitumen and brimstone, it became a lake, as we now see it; the rocks took fire, some of the cities were swallowed up, and others forsaken by those inhabitants that could flee away.” Tacitus,⁹⁹⁹⁹   In the fifth book of his history: “Not far from thence are those fields which are reported to have been formerly very fruitful, and had large cities built in them, but they were burnt by lightning; the marks of which remain; in that the land is of a burning nature, and has lost its fruitfulness. For every thing that is planted, or grows of itself, as soon as it is come to an herb or flower, or grown to its proper bigness, vanishes like dust, into nothing.” Pliny,¹⁰⁰¹⁰⁰   He describes the lake Asphaltites, book v. chap. 16. and book xxxv. chap. 15. Solinus,¹⁰¹¹⁰¹   In the 36th chap. of Salmasius’s edition: “At a good distance from Jerusalem, a dismal lake extends itself, which was struck by lightning, as appears from the black earth burnt to ashes. There were two towns there, one called Sodom, the other Gomorrha; the apples that grow there cannot be eaten, though they look at if they were ripe; for the outward skin incloses a kind of sooty ashes, which, pressed by the least touch, flies out in smoke, and vanishes into fine dust.” 53speak of the burning of Sodom. Herodotus,¹⁰²¹⁰²   With some little mistake. The words are in his Euterpe, “Originally only the Colchians, and Egyptians, and Ethiopians, were circumcised. For the Phœnicians, and Syrians in Palestine, confess they learned it from the Egyptians. And the Syrians who dwell at Thermodoon, and on the Parthenian river, and the Macrons, their neighbours, say, they learnt it of the Colchians. For these are the only men that are circumcised, and in this particular agree with the Egyptians. But concerning the Ethiopians and Egyptians, I cannot affirm positively which learned it of the other.” Josephus rightly observes, that none were circumcised in Palestine Syria but the Jews; in the eighth book, chap. 4. of his ancient history, and first book against Appion. Concerning which Jews, Juvenal says, “They take off their foreskin;” and Tacitus, “that they instituted circumcising themselves, that they might be known by such distinction.” See Strabo, book xvii. But the Jews are so far from confessing that they derived this custom from the Egyptians, that, on the contrary, they openly declare, that the Egyptians learnt to be circumcised of Joseph. Neither were all the Egyptians circumcised, as all the Jews were, as we may see from the example of Appion, who was an Egyptian, in Josephus. Herodotus undonbtedly put the Phœnicians for the Idumæans; as Aristophanes does in his play called the Birds, where he calls the Egyptians and Phœnicians, “the circumcised.” Ammonius, of the difference of words, says, “the Idumæans were not originally Jews, but Phœnicians and Syrians.” Those Ethiopians which were circumcised, were of the posterity of Keturah, as shall be observed afterwards. The Colchians and their neighbours were of the ten tribes that Salmanasar carried away, and from thence some came into Thrace. Thus the Scholiast on Aristophanes’s Acharnenses says, “That the nation of the Odomants is the same as the Thracians; they are said to be Jews.” Where, by Jews, are to be understood, improperly, Hebrews, as is usual. From the Ethiopians, circumcision went across the sea into the new world, if it be true what is said of that rite’s being found in many places of that world.—(The learned dispute whether circumcision was instituted first amongst the Egyptians or amongst the Jews; concerning which, see my notes upon Genesis xvii. 10. Le Clerc.) Diodorus,¹⁰³¹⁰³   Book i. of the Colchians; “That this nation sprang from the Egyptians appears from hence, that they are circumcised after the manner of the Egyptians; which custom remains amongst this colony, as it does amongst the Jews.” Now, since the Hebrews were of old circumcised; it no more follows, from the Cholchians being circumcised, that they sprang from the Egyptians, than that they sprang from the Hebrews, as we affirm they did. He tells us, book iii. that the Troglodites were circumcised, who were a part of the Ethiopians. 54Strabo,¹⁰⁴¹⁰⁴   Book xvi. concerning the Troglodites: “Some of these are circumcised, like the Egyptians.” In the same book he ascribes circumcision to the Jews. Philo Biblius,¹⁰⁵¹⁰⁵   In the fable of Saturn, in Eusebius, book i. chap. 10. testify the ancient custom of circumcision, which is confirmed by those nations descended from Abraham,¹⁰⁶¹⁰⁶   To which Abraham, that the precept of circumcision was first of all given, Theodorus tells us in his poem upon the Jews; out of which Eusebius has preserved these verses in his Gospel Preparation, book ix. chap. 22.—
   “He who from home the righteous Abraham brought,
Commanded him, and all his house, with knife
To circumcise their foreskin. He obeyed.” not only Hebrews, but also 55Idumæans,¹⁰⁷¹⁰⁷   So called from Esau, who is called Οὐσωός Ousoos, by Philo Biblius. His other name was Edom, which the Greeks translated Ἐρυθρᾶν Eruthran, from whence comes the Erythræan sea, because the ancient dominions of Esau and his posterity extended so far. They who are ignorant of their original confound them, as we observed, with the Phœnicians. Ammonius says, the Idumæans were circumcised; and so does Justin, in his dialogue with Trypho; and Epiphanius against the Ebionites. Part of these were Homerites, who, Epiphanius against the Ebionites tells us, were circumcised in his time. Ismaelites,¹⁰⁸¹⁰⁸   These were circumcised of old, but on the same year of their age as Ismael. Josephus, book i. chap. 12. and 13. “A child was born to them (viz. Abraham and Sarah) when they were both very old, which they circumcised on the eighth day; and hence the custom of the Jews is, to circumcise after so many days. But the Arabians defer it thirteen years: for Ismael, the father of that nation, who was the child of Abraham by his concubine, was circumcised at that age.” Thus Origen, in his excellent discourse against fate, which is extant in Eusebius, book vi. chap. 11. and in the Greek collection, whose title is Φιλοκαλία; “I don’t know how this can be defended, that there should be just such a position of the stars upon every one’s birth in Judæa, that upon the eighth day they must be circumcised, made sore, wounded, lamed, and so inflamed, that they want the help of a physician, as soon as they come into the world. And that there should be such a position of the stars to the Ismaelites in Arabia, that they must be all circumcised when they are thirteen years old; for so it is reported of them.” Epiphanius, in his dispute against the Ebionites, rightly explains these Ismaelites to be the Saracens; for the Saracens always observed this custom, and the Turks had it from them. and others.¹⁰⁹¹⁰⁹   Namely those that descended from Keturah, concerning whore there is a famous place of Alexander the historian in Josephus book i. chap. 16. which Eusebius quotes in his Gospel Preparation, book ix. chap. 20. “Cleodemus the prophet, who is called Malchus, in his relation of the Jews, gives us the same history as Moses their lawgiver, viz. that Abraham had many children by Keturah, to three of which he gave the names Afer, Asser, and Afra. Assyria is so called from Asser; and from the other two, Afer, and Afra, the city Afra, and the country Africa, are denominated. These fought with Hercules against Lybia and Antæus. Then Hercules married his daughter to Afra: he had a son of her, whose name was Deodorus, of whom was born Sophon, whence the barbarians are called Sophaces.” Here the other names, through the fault of the transcribers, neither agree with Moses, nor with the books of Josephus and Eusebius, as we have them now. But Ἀφὲρ Apher, is undoubtedly the same עפר Apher in Moses. We are to understand by Hercules, not the Theban Hercules, but the Phœnician Hercules, much older, whom Philo Biblius mentions, quoted by Eusebius often, in the fore-mentioned 10th chapter of the first book of his Gospel Preparation. This is that Hercules who, Sallust says in his Jugurthine war, brought his army into Africa. So that we see whence the Ethiopians, who were a great part of the Africans, had their circumcision, which they had in Herodotus’s time; and even now, those that are Christians retain it, not out of a religious necessity, but out of respect to so ancient a custom. The history of 56Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, agreeable with Moses, was extant of old¹¹⁰¹¹⁰   Scaliger thinks that several things, which Eusebius has preserved out of Philo Biblius, certainly relate to Abraham: see himself in his appendix to the Emendation of Time. There is some reason to doubt of it. in Philo Biblius out of Sanchuniathon,¹¹¹¹¹¹   How far we are to give credit to Philo’s Sanchuniathon does not yet appear; for the very learned Henry Dodwell has rendered his integrity very suspicious, in his English dissertation on Sanchuniathon’s Phœnician history, published at London, in the year 1681, to whose arguments we may add this, that in his fragments there is an absurd mixture of the gods unknown to the eastern Grecians in the first times, with the deities of the Phœnicians, which the straitness of paper will not allow me to enlarge upon. Le Clerc. in Berosus,¹¹²¹¹²   Josephus has preserved his words in his ancient history, book i. chap. 8. “In the tenth generation after the flood, there was a man amongst the Chaldæans, who was very just and great, and sought after heavenly things.” Now it is evident from reason, that this ought to be referred to the time of Abraham. Hecatæus,¹¹³¹¹³   He wrote a book concerning Abraham, which is now lost, but was extant in Josephus’s time. Damascenus,¹¹⁴¹¹⁴   Nicolaus, that famous man, who was the friend of Augustus and Herod, some of whose relics were lately procured by that excellent person Nicholas Peiresius; by whose death, learning and learned men had a very great loss. The words of this Nicolaus Damascenes, Josephus relates in the fore-cited place: “Abraham reigned in Damascus, being a stranger who came out of the land of the Chaldæans, beyond Babylon; and, not long after, he, and those that belonged to him, went from hence into the land then called Canaan, but now Judæa, where he and those that descended from him dwelt, of whose affairs I shall treat in another place. The name of Abraham is at this day famous in the country about Damascus, and they shew us the town which from him is called Abraham’s dwelling.” Artapanus, Eupolemus, 57Demetrius,¹¹⁵¹¹⁵   Eusebius, in his Preparation, book ix. ch. 16, 17, 18, 21, 23. has quoted several things, under these men’s names, out of Alexander the historian, but the places are too long to be transcribed; nobody has quoted them before Eusebius. But the fable of the Bethulians, which Eusebius took out of Philo Biblius, Prepar. book i. chap. 10. came from the altar of Bethel, built by Jacob, mentioned Gen. xxxvi. and partly in the ancient writers of the Orphic verses;¹¹⁶¹¹⁶   2 For certainly those that we find in Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. v. and Eusebius, book xiii. chap. 12. can be understood of no other:—    “The Maker of all things is known to none,
But one of the Chaldæan race, his son
Only begotten, who well understood
The starry orb, and by what laws each star
Moves round the earth, embracing all things in it.”
   Where Abraham is called only begotten, as in Isaiah li. 2. אחד Achad. We have before seen, in Berosus, that Abraham was famous for the knowledge of astronomy; and Eupolemus, in Eusebius, says of him, “that he was the inventor of astronomy amongst the Chaldæans.” and something of it is still extant in Justin,¹¹⁷¹¹⁷   Book xxxvi. chap. 2. “The original of the Jews was from Damascus, an eminent city in Syria, of which afterwards Abraham and Israel were kings,” Trogus Pompeius calls them kings, as Nicolaus did; because they exercised a kingly power in their families; and therefore they are called Anointed, Psalm cv. 15. out of Trogus Pompeius. By almost all which is 58related also the history of Moses, and his principal acts.¹¹⁸¹¹⁸   See Eusebius, in the fore-mentioned book ix. chap. 26, 27, 28. Those things are true which are there quoted out of Tragicus Judtæus Ezechiel, part of which we find in Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. i. who reports, out of the books of the priests, that an Egyptian was slain at Moses’s word; and, Strom. v. he relates some things belonging to Moses, out of Artapanus, though not very exactly. Justin, out of Trogus Pompeius, says of Moses, “He was leader of those that were banished, and took away the sacred things of the Egyptians; which they endeavouring to recover by arms, were forced by a tempest to return home; and that Moses having entered into his own country of Damascus, took possession of mount Sinah;” and what follows, which is a mixture of truth and falsehood, where we find Arvas written by him, it should be read Arnas, who is Aaron, not the son, as he imagines, but the brother of Moses, and a priest. The Orphic verses expressly mention his being taken out of the water, and the two tables that were given him by God.¹¹⁹¹¹⁹   As the great Scaliger has mended the place; who with a very little variation of the shape of a letter, instead of ὑλογενὴς, hulogenes, as it is quoted out of Aristobulus, by Eusebius, in his Gospel Preparat. book xiii. chap. 12. bids us read ὑδογενὴςhudogenes, born of the water. So that the verses are thus:—
   “So was it said of old, so he commands
Who’s born of water, who receiv’d from God
The two great tables of the moral law,”
   The ancient writer of the Orphic verses, whoever he was, added these words, after he had said, that there was but one God to be worshipped, who was the Creator and Governor of the world. To these we may add Polemon:¹²⁰¹²⁰   He seems to have lived in the time of Ptolemy Epiphanes: concerning which, see that very useful book of the famous Gerard Vossius, of the Greek historians. Africanus says, the Greek histories were wrote by him; which is the same book Athenæus calls Ἑλλαδικόν. His words are these: “In the reign of Apis the son of Phoroneus, part of the Egyptian army went out of Egypt, and dwelt in Syria, called Palestine, not far from Arabia.” As Africanus preserved the place of Polemon, so Eusebius, in his chronology, preserved that of Africanus. and several things about his coming out of Egypt, from the Egyptian 59writers, Manetho, Lysimachus, Chæremon.¹²¹¹²¹   The places are in Josephus against Appion, with abundance of falsities, as coining from people whit) hated the Jews; and from hence Tacitus took his account of them. But it appears, from all these compared together, that the Hebrews descended from the Assyrians; and, possessing a great part of Egypt, led the life of shepherds; but afterwards, being burthened with hard labour, they came out of Egypt under the command of Moses, some of the Egyptians accompanying them, and went through the country of the Arabians, unto Palestine Syria, and there set up rites contrary to those of the Egyptians; but Josephus, in that learned book, has surprisingly shewn, how the Egyptian writers, in the falsities which they have here and there mixed with this history, differ with one another, and some with themselves, and how many ages the books of Moses exceed theirs in antiquity. Neither can any prudent man think it at all credible that Moses, who had so many enemies,¹²²¹²²   From whom they went away, by force, whose laws the Jews abolished. Concerning the implacable hatred of the Egyptians against the Jews, see Philo against Flaccus, and in his Embassy, and Josephus in each book against Appion. not only of the Egyptians, but also of many other nations, as the Idumæans,¹²³¹²³   Who inherited the ancient hatred between Jacob and Esau; which was increased from a new cause, when the Idumæans denied the Hebrews a passage, Numb. xx. 14. Arabians,¹²⁴¹²⁴   Those, I mean, that descended from Ismael. and Phœnicians,¹²⁵¹²⁵   Namely, the Canaanites, and the neighbouring nations, who had continual wars with the Hebrews. would venture to relate any thing concerning the creation of the world, or the original of things, which could be confuted by more ancient writings, or was contradictory to the ancient and received opinions; or that he would relate any thing of matters in his own time, that could be confuted by the testimony of many persons then alive. Diodorus Siculus,¹²⁶¹²⁶   In his first book, where he treats of those who made the gods to be the authors of their laws, he adds; “Amongst the Jews was Moses, who called God by the name of Ἰάω, Iao;” where by Ἰάω, he means יחוה Jehovah, which was so pronounced by the oracles, and in the Orphic verses mentioned by the ancients, and by the Basilidian heretics, and other gnostics. The same name the Tyrians, as we learn from Philo Biblius, pronounced Ἰευὼ, Ieuo, others Ἰαοὐ, Iaou, as we see in Clemens Alexandrinus. The Samaritans pronounced it Ἰαβαὶ, Iabai, as we read in Theodoret; for the eastern people added to the same words, some one vowel, and some another; from whence it is that there is such difference in the proper names In the Old Testament. Philo rightly observes, that this word signifies existence. Besides Diodurus, of those who make mention of Moses, the exhortation to the Greeks, which is ascribed to Justin, names Appion, Ptolemy on Mandesius, Hellanicus, Philochorus, Castor, Thallus, Alexander the historian: and Cyril mentions some of them in his first book against Julian. and 60Strabo,¹²⁷¹²⁷   The place is in the sixteenth book, where he thinks that Moses was an Egyptian priest; which he had from the Egyptian writers, as appears in Josephus: afterwards he adds his own opinion, which him some mistakes in it: “Many who worshipped the Deity agreed with him (Moses); for he both said and taught, that the Egyptians did not rightly conceive of God, when they likened him to wild beasts and cattle; nor the Libyans, nor the Greeks, in resembling him by a human shape; for God is no other than that universe which surrounds us; the earth, and the sea, and the heaven, and the world, and the nature of all things, as they are called by us. Who (says he) that has any understanding, would presume to form any image like to these things that are about us? Wherefore we ought to lay aside all carved images, and worship him in the innermost part of a temple worthy of him, without any figure.” He adds, that this was the opinion of good men: he adds also, that sacred rites were instituted by him, which were not burdensome for the costliness, nor hateful, as proceeding from madness. He mentions circumcision, the meats that were forbidden, and the like: and, after he had shewu that man was naturally desirous of civil society, he tells us, that it is promoted by divine and human precepts, but more effectually by divine. and Pliny,¹²⁸¹²⁸   2 Book xxx. chap. 1. “There is another sect of magicians, which sprang from Moses.” And Juvenal;
   “They learn, and keep, and fear, the Jewish law,
Which Moses in his secret volume gave.” Tacitus,¹²⁹¹²⁹   History v. where, according to the Egyptian fables, Moses is called ” one of those that were banished.” and, after them, Dionysius 61Longinus,¹³⁰¹³⁰   He lived in the time of Aurelian the emperor, a favourite or Zenobia, queen of the Palmyrians. In his book of the Sublime, after he had said, that they who speak of God ought to take care to represent him as great, and pure, and without mixture; he adds, “Thus does he who gave laws to the Jews, who was an extraordinary man, who conceived and spoke worthily of the power of God, when he writes in the beginning of his laws, God spake: What? Let there he light, and there was light: Let there be earth, and it was so.” Chalcidius took many things out of Moses, of whom he .speaks thus: “Moses was the wisest of men, who, as they say, was enlivened not by human eloquence, but by divine inspiration.” (concerning loftiness of speech), make mention of Moses. Besides the Talmudists,¹³¹¹³¹   In the Gemara, in the title, Concerning Oblations, and the chapter, All the Oblations of the Synagogue. To which add the Tanchuma, or Ilmedenu. Mention is there made of the chief of Pharaoh’s magicians, and their discourse with Moses is related. Add also Numenius, book iii. concerning the Jews: Eusebius quotes his words, book viii. chap, 8. “Afterwards Jamnes and Mambres, Egyptian scribes, were thought to be famous for magical arts, about the time that the Jews were driven out of Egypt; for these were they who were chosen out of the multitude of the Egyptians, to contend with Musæus the leader of the Jews, a man very powerful with God by prayers; and they seemed to be able to repel those sore calamities which were brought upon Egypt by Musæus.” Where Moses is called Musæus, a word very near it, as is customary with the Greeks; as others call Jesus, Jason; and Saul, Paul. Origen against Celsus refers us to the same place of Numenius. Artaparnus, in the same Eusebius, book ix. ch. 27. calls them the priests of Memphis, who were commanded by the king to be put to death, if they did not do things equal to Moses. Pliny¹³²¹³²   In the fore-cited place. and Apulcius¹³³¹³³   In his second Apologetic. speak of Jamnes and Mambres, who resisted Moses in Egypt. Some things there are in other writers,¹³⁴¹³⁴   As in Strabo, Tacitus, and Theophrastus, quoted by Porphyry, in his second book, against eating living creatures, where he treats of priests and burnt-offerings; and in the fourth book of the same work, where he speaks of fishes, and other living creatures, that were forbidden to be eaten. See the place of Hecatæus, in Josephus’s first book against Appion, and in Eusebius’s Preparat. book in, chap. 4, You have the law of avoiding the customs of strange nations, in Justin’s and Tacitus’s histories; of not eating swine’s flesh, in Tacitus, Juvenal, Plutarch’s Sympos. iv. and Macrobius from the ancients. In the same place of Plutarch, you will find mention of the Levites, and the pitching of the tabernacle. and 62many things amongst the Pythagoreans,¹³⁵¹³⁵   Hermippus, in the life of Pythagoras, quoted by Josephus against Appion, b. ii. “These things he said and did, imitating the opinions of the Jews and Thracians, and transferring them to himself; for truly this man took many things into his own philosophy from the Jewish laws.” To abstain from creatures that die of themselves, is put among the precepts of Pythagoras, by Hierocles, and Prophyry in his epistle to Anebo, and Ælian, book iv.; that is out of Levit. iv. 15. Deut. xiv. 21. “Thou shalt not engrave the figure of God on a ring,” is taken out of Pythagoras, in Malchus’s or Porphyry’s exhortation to philosophy, and in Diogenes LaCrtius: and this from the second commandment. “Take not away that which thou didst not place,” Josephus, in his second book against Appion, puts amongst the Jewish precepts, and Philostratus amongst the Pythagorean. Jamblicus says, “A tender and fruit-fill tree ought not to be corrupted or hurt,” which he had out of Deuteronomy xx. 19. The fore-mentioned Hermippus ascribes this to Pythagoras, not to pass by a place where an ass has set upon his knees; the foundation of which is the story in Numb. xxii. 27. Porphyry acknowledges that Plato took many things from the Hebrews, as Theodoret observes in his first discourse against the Greeks. You will see part of them in Eusebius’s Preparation.—(I suspect that Hermippus, or Josephus, instead of Jews, should have said Idæans, that is, the priests of Jupiter Idæus in Crete, whom Pythagoras envied. See sir John Marsham’s collection of these, in his tenth age of the Egyptian affairs. Le Clerc.) about the law and rites given by Moses. Strabo and Justin,¹³⁶¹³⁶   Strabo, in his fourteenth book, after the history of Moses, says, “That his followers for a considerable time kept his precepts, and were truly righteous and godly.” And a little after he says, that those, who believed in Moses, “worshipped God, and were lovers of equity.” And Justin says thus, book xxxvi, c. 2. ” Whose righteousness (viz. the kings and priests) mixed with religion, increased beyond belief.” Aristotle also (witness Clearchus in his second book of sleep, which Josephus transcribed) gives a great character of a Jew, whom he had seen, for his wisdom and learning. Tacitus, amongst his many falsities, says this one truth, that the Jews worshipped “that Supreme and Eternal Being, who was immutable and could not perish,” that is, God, as Dion Cassius speaks, treating of the same Jews), “who is ineffable and invisible.” out of 63Trogus, remarkably testify concerning the religion and righteousness of the ancient Jews: so that there seems to be no need of mentioning what is found, or has formerly been found, of Joshua and others, agreeable to the Hebrew books; seeing that whoever gives credit to Moses, (which it is a shame for any one to refuse), cannot but believe those famous miracles done by the hand of God; which is the principal thing here aimed at. Now, that the miracles of later date, such as those of Elijah,¹³⁷¹³⁷   Concerning whose prophecy, Eusebius says, Prep. book ix. chap. 30. that Eupolemns wrote a book. In the 39th chapter of the same book, Eusebius quotes a place of his concerning the prophecies of Jeremiah. Elisha, and others, should not be counterfeit, there is this further argument; that in those times Judæa was become more known, and, because of the difference of religion, was bated by the neighbours, who could very easily confute the first rise of a lie. The history of Jonah’s being three days in the whale’s belly is in Lycophron and Æneas Gazeus,¹³⁸¹³⁸   The verses are these:— “Of that three-nighted lion, whom of old Triton’s fierce dog with furious jaws devour’d, Within whose bowels, tearing his liver, He rolled, burning with heat, though without fire, His head with drops of sweat bedew’d all o’er.”
   Upon which place Tzetses says, “because he was three days within the whale.” And Æneas Gazeus in Theophrastus: “According to the story of Hercules, who was saved by a whale swallowing him up, when the ship in which he sailed was wrecked.” only under the name of Hercules; to advance whose fame, every thing that 64was great and noble used to be related of him, as Tacitus observes.¹³⁹¹³⁹   And Servius, as Varro and Verrius Flaccus affirm. Certainly nothing but the manifest evidence of the history could compel Julian (who was as great au enemy to the Jews as to the Christians) to confess that there were some men inspired by the Divine Spirit amongst the Jews,¹⁴⁰¹⁴⁰   Book iii. in Cyril. and that fire descended from heaven, and consumed the sacrifices of Moses and Elias.¹⁴¹¹⁴¹   Julian, in the tenth book of Cyril: “Ye refuse to bring sacrifices to the altar, and offer them, because the fire does not descend from heaven and consume the sacrifices, as it did in Moses’s time; this happened once to Moses, and again long after to Elijah the Tishbite.” See what follows concerning the fire from heaven. Cyprian, in iii. of his testimonies, says, “That, in the sacrifices, all those that God accepted of, fire came down from heaven, and consumed the things sacrificed.” Menander also, in his Phœnician history, mentions that great drought which happened in the time of Elias, that is, when Ithobalus reigned amongst the Tyrians. See Josephus in his ancient history, book viii. chap. 7. And here it is worthy of observation, that there were not only very severe punishments threatened amongst the Hebrews, to any who should falsely assume the gift of prophecy,¹⁴²¹⁴²   See Deut. xiii. 5. xviii. 20. and the following. but very many kings,¹⁴³¹⁴³   Nobody dared to do it after David. who by that means might have procured great authority to themselves; and many learned men, such as Esdras and others,¹⁴⁴¹⁴⁴   The Hebrews used to remark upon those times, “Hitherto the prophets, now begin the wise men.” dared not to assume this honour to themselves; nay, some ages before Christ’s time, nobody dared to do it.¹⁴⁵¹⁴⁵   Therefore, in the first book of Maccabees, iv. 46. we read, that the stones of the altar which was defiled were laid aside, “until there should come a prophet to shew what should be done with them.” And, in the ixth chap. ver. 27. of the same book: “So was there a great affliction in Israel, the like whereof had never been, since the time that there were no prophets amongst them.” The same we find in the Talmud, in the title concerning the council. Much less could so many thousand 65people be imposed upon, in avouching a constant and public miracle, I mean that of the oracle,¹⁴⁶¹⁴⁶   See Exodus xxviii. 30. Levit. viii. 8. Numb. xxvii. 21. Deut. xxxiii. 9. 1 Sam. xxi. 2. xxii. 10, 13, 15. xxiii. 2, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12. xxviii. 6. Add Nehem. vii. 65.; and Josephus, book iii. 9. This is what is meant by the words ἐρώτημα δήλων, “the consulting, (an oracle), where you will have an answer as clear as light itself;” in the Son of Sirach, xxviii. 3.; for the word δῆλα, clear, answers to the Hebrew אורים Urim; and so the Seventy translate it in the fore-cited places, Numb. xxvii. 21. 1 Sam. xxviii. 6. and elsewhere δήλωσιν, making clear, as Exod. xxviii. 26. Lev. viii. 8. They also translate תמים Thumin, ἀλήθειαν, truth. The Egyptians imitated this, just as children do men. Diodorus, book i. relating the affairs of the Egyptians, says of the chief judge, “that he hath truth banging about his neck.” And again afterwards, “The king commands that all things necessary and fitting should be provided for the subsistence of the judges, and that the chief judge should have great plenty. This man carries about his neck an image of precious stones, hanging on a golden chain, which they call Truth, and they then begin to hear cases, when the chief judge has fixed this image of truth.” And Ælian, book xiv. chap. 24, of his various history: “The judges in old time amongst the Egyptians were priests, the oldest of which was chief priest, who judged every one; and he ought to be a very just man, and one that spared nobody. He wore an ornament about his neck, made of sapphire stone, which was called Truth.” The Babylonish Gemara, chap. i. of the book called Joma, says, that some things in the first temple were wanting in the second, as the ark with the mercy-seat, and the cherubims, the fire coming from heaven, the Schecinah, the Holy Ghost, and the Urim and Thumin. which shined on the high priest’s breast, which is so firmly believed by all the Jews to have remained till the destruction of the first temple, that their ancestors must of necessity be well assured of the truth of it.¹⁴⁷¹⁴⁷   This is a conjecture of the rabbins, without any foundation from scripture. It is much more credible, that the priest pronounced the oracle with his mouth. See our observations on Exod. xxviii. 30. Numb. xxvii. 21. Le Clerc.