among the Heathens, by this Time, had People who could write, perhaps Priests were not very hafty to change their Methods, and Writing was not yet common; and all Pretences to Hiftory much before this Time, are forged, and all the antient human Writers talked without Book.

I think we know little of what was done Eastward, fave what we have from Affyria: Thole who went that Way beyond the Reach of Correfpondence, without Letters, and knew nothing of any Method to record Things but by Memorials, which, at the Time they went off, or foon after, were corrupted, can give us no Account of what has befallen them, from that Time to the Time we found them: So we can fay nothing but that tho' they have preferved many Hints of Things by thefe Memorials, in that vaft Procels of Time, they have loft the antient Language, and formed new ones. The Cafe of the Chinefe is pretty much the fame as theirs, who writ with Letters; for as they carried not Writing, by Letters, with them, whenever they began to write in the Manner we fee; for what was then paft, or had been before that Time, they, as the Heathens Weftward, guefs'd at Part, and forged Accounts of the reft.

It must be fome Time after this, before the Greek, first, and after that, the Latin, which were further Corruptions of the fecond, and may be faid to be the third Sort of Languages, commenced; and as their Writing and Languages grew together at firft, the Greeks writ many Words which none can now understand. Long after that, Dr. Cumberland, in his Sanchon. p. 24. GEN. II. calling him Beelfamin, which in Phenician is, Lord of Heaven; in Greek is, Zeus: Then he charges a Miftake upon the Greeks, faying, For we, not vainly, have frequently diftinguished thofe Names, but with respect to the later Signification of Names accruing to them from later Things; which the Greeks not knowing, have confrued otherwife, being deceived with the Ambiguity of their Significations. And befides the Scraps of Infcriptions, &c. there were many Laws writ by the Romans, which fhew, that they had not then brought their Language to any Rules, either of Grammar, or &c. which appears by the Alterations which were made between that Time and the Times when the Clafficks were writ. And there is a reasonable Proof, that the Greek would alter confiderably between the Times when fome of the antienteft Books are F 3 faid

faid to have been writ, and the Times of writing later Books, which are known, and is a Proof that there cannot be any fuch Difference in Time as they pretend there is. We find, 1 Maccab. viii. the Romans wrote a League with the Jews in Tables of Brafs, and fent them to Judea, but how it was performed, we cannot say,

The Evidence for the Hebrew Writings is, that the first and laft and all (except a few Verses of Chaldee) were the fame, The Evidence of the Antiquity of a Writing in any other Language is, that it had abundance of Blunders in it, and differed from the Writings when that Language was regulated.

If there have been many fuch critical Tranfcribers of antient MSS. as our mo¬ dern Editors are, who have attempted to rectifie all Irregularities, and reform them to what the Language was fome Hundreds of Years after, or conform them to their own Heads, the ftrongest Proofs of their Antiquity may be blotted out.

Wherever it was, that what is faid to be writ by Sanchoniathon, was writ, People believe, as appears in Bochart de Colonis &Sermone Phænicum, p. 778. and indeed, as appears by the Words, that it was writ in a Language of corrupted Hebrew, and

about

about the Objects that the Heathens in or near Judea worshipped. But what Relation has ferombaal to Ferubaal? Was any Thing more common than for Priefts, nay, Kings, to be called after their Gods, or of joining two Words together, and compounding a Name? May not every one fee, that in Tranflations from the elder Languages into Greek, where they knew the Meaning of the Words, they tranflated them; and is not Jerom Greek, or as near as many other Words in that Tranflation? And where they knew not the Meaning of a Word, or if it was a Word fo well known that they knew not how to exprefs it fo well, they changed it into Greek Letters. If the first had been the Cafe of Baal, it would have fignified nothing in Greek; but I doubt Baal was too well known every where. If Jerombaal be the Name of a Prieft, and eú was ufed by the Greeks for the Heavens, as I have fhewed it was, fuch wrefted Significations or Gueffes as they have of fered, have no Place. And all the Evidence from the Suppofition that this was Gideon, and fo of this Author's Time or Antiquity, fails; which it certainly does, because there was no fuch Language writ F 4

ten

ten at the Time affigned. Dr. Cumberland, in his Sanch. p. 418. will not let his Manetho be believed, because he has told him truly, that he had his Accountsfrom the Adyta of the Egyptian Temples, from Hieroglyphicks upon the Columns and tho' his Sanchoniathon tells him the same, that he had his from the facred Records at Beritus (which might be at Beth Baal Berith) yet he must be believed, tho' it is certain there was no other Sort of Writing, nor in any other but fuch Places, or Things which were tranfacted in the Times they talk of, nor there neither: Some have fince been forged to oppofe Mofes's Writings, of which this was one. And 'tis as certain, that the Images, or Representations, or Memorials found there, with Royal and other Emblems, were not Men, but Powers, Attributes of the Heavens, the Names of Objects which they worhipped; fo each called King, Father, &c. and as they found no Letters with thefe Kings, fo they found no Names, but Emblems to each, which fhewed what Power it was that each reprefented, and fo while Hebrew was preferved, fhewed its Name: And tho' he has puzled fo much, to find out that his King Menes was Meon,