the same purpose. There is no sort of fish in this sea, by reason of the extraordinary saltness of it, which burns like fire when one tastes of it; and, when the fish of the water Jordan come down so low, they return back again against the stream; and such as are carried into it by the current of the water immediately die. The land within three leagues round it is not cultivated, but is white and mingled with salt and ashes. In short, we must think, that there is a heavy curse of God upon that place, seeing it was heretofore so pleasant a country.'

Thus we see, that the concurrent voice of historians, and the face of nature herself, equally serve to corroborate the authenticity of the Mosaical narrative."

IV. In the same age with the destruction of the cities of the plain, flourished the regal patriarch Abraham. The pastoral magnificence and the nomade life of this eminent personage could not but make him an object of attention through a considerable part of the east and the public curiosity would be additionally excited by the not

2

I Thevenot's Travels. vol. i. p. 194.

It is not improbable, that, in part at least, the fable of Baucis and Philemon may have been borrowed from the history of the cities of the plain. The aged couple are visited by gods in a human form: their piety proves their safeguard: but the impious city, in which they dwelt and which shewed a total disregard to the rites of hospitality, is judicially plunged beneath the waters of a stagnant pool. Ovid. Metam. lib. viii. ver. 618-724.

concealed circumstance, that he was specially called by the Supreme Being. Accordingly, we find him celebrated by numerous heathen historians.

Berosus, though he does not expressly mention his name, says, that in the tenth age after the deluge lived a just and upright man, deeply skilled in the knowledge of astronomy: Hecatèus wrote a whole volume respecting his history and Nicolaus Damascenus asserts, that he reigned in Damascus, having emigrated along with an army to that place from the country of Chaldea; but that not long afterwards he removed with his attendants into the land, which was then called Canaan, but now Judea.' Eupolemus also relates various particulars respecting him, which exactly agree with the scriptural account. He was born, according to this author, in the tenth age after the flood, at a place denominated Camara or Urien; by which we are doubtless to understand Ur of Chaldea: for Camara and Urien and Ur are all words of the same import, denoting equally that sacred fire which was so highly venerated in Babylonia. Pursuant to the command of heaven, he left his native country, and settled in Phenicia. During his abode there, the Armenians overcame the Phenicians in battle, and took his nephew prisoner. Abraham however, arming his servants, rescued him; and led away captive the children and the wives of the enemy. Upon an embassy being sent to him to redeem them, he nobly disdained to

Joseph. Ant. Jud. lib. i. c. 7.

insult a vanquished foe; and, content with merely accepting pay for his soldiers, he restored his prisoners to their liberty. Afterwards, in the holy city Argarizin,' he received gifts from Melchizedek the priest of God. In process of time, he was driven by stress of famine into Egypt. The beauty of his wife, whom he called his sister, attracted the attention of the king. But, certain marks of divine wrath pursuing that prince, he learnt upon inquiry that she was the wife of Abraham, and immediately restored her to her husband.' We find the same great patriarch celebrated likewise by Artapanus. This writer affirms, that the Jews were called Hebrews from the name of their ancestor Abraham: and he further mentions the circumstance of his having travelled into Egypt, the prince of which country he styles Pharetho.* So again, Abraham is said by Melo to have married two wives, one his kinswoman, and the other an Egyptian slave. The latter of these bore him twelve children, who made themselves masters of Arabia; the former a single son, whose name was equivalent in signification to the Greek word Gelos. As for Abraham himself, he died in a good old

3

That is, Mount Gerizim; a circumstance, which seems to shew, that Eupolemus had received this part of his narrative at least from the Samaritans.

2 Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. ix. c. 17.

3 See some judicious remarks upon the name Heber, by Mr. Bryant; Anal. vol. iii. p. 424.

Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. ix. c. 18.

Laughter.

I

age; but his son Gelos became the father of twelve children, one of whom was Joseph. Abraham, some time previous to his death, received a command from God to sacrifice his son: but, when he was on the very point of putting it in execution, he was prevented by an angel; and the intended victim was exchanged for a ram. Notwithstanding the errors in this last account, respecting the immediate offspring of the Egyptian wife, and also respecting that of Isaac or (as Melo calls him) Gelos; it is obvious, that the narrative is, in substance, the very same with that of Scripture. I may be permitted to observe in conclusion, that the whole of the history of Abraham is related in different parts of the Koran: for, although this circumstance undoubtedly cannot be brought as a confirmation of Scripture, inasmuch as the one account is borrowed from the other; yet it serves to shew the high degree of veneration, in which the memory of that Patriarch was held throughout the east. In short, as it is remarked by Hyde, his fame was diffused over the whole oriental world, and his memory was revered by almost every Asiatic nation.3

V. There is however a remarkable event in the life of Abraham; which, though briefly noticed (as we have seen) by Melo, may justly require a more extended consideration.

1 Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. ix. c. 19. 2 Sale's Koran, p. 182, 369, 422, &c. 3 De Rel. Vet. Pers. c. ii.

VOL. I.

M

Of the piacular sacrifice of Isaac a vivid tradition seems to have been preserved among the Phenicians though, in consequence of the prevalent doctrine of transmigratory reappearances, they confounded the great father Abraham, who stood in the tenth descent from the flood, and who flourished at the epoch of the partial deluge of the lake Asphaltis; with the great father Noah, who similarly stood in the tenth descent from the creation, who flourished at the epoch of the universal deluge, and who was venerated by them under the Indo-Scythic name of Il which the Greeks expressed Cronus.'

During the life-time of this hero-god, who (according to the general appropriating humour of the Gentiles,) is celebrated as an early king of Palestine, and who is said to have been translated after his death to the planet Saturn, his people were reduced to extreme distress by an unsuccessful war or (as the story is sometimes told) by a pestilential disorder. Under these circumstances, Il arrayed in the royal robes his only son, who from his soligeniture was in the Punic dialect called Jehud; placed him upon an altar; and devoted him, as an expiatory sacrifice, to the avenging demons.*

We are told in the course of the narrative, that such offerings were esteemed MYSTICAL. This particular increases the probability of the legend

1

See Origin of Pagan Idol. book i. c. 2. § XIII.

2 Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. lib. iv. c. 16.