I.

BOOK all their relations are accounted fabulous. A fair account then we are like to have from them of the first antiquities of the world, who could not speak plain truth, till the world was above three thousand years old; for so was it when the Olympiads began.

Juftin. Mar

So true is the observation of Justin Martyr, δὲν Ἕλλησι tyr. Cohort. πρὸ τῶν Ὀλυμπιάδων ἀκριβὲς ἱςόρηται; the Greeks had no ad Græcos, exact history of themselves before the Olympiads; but of that more afterwards.

C. 12. Ed.

Oxon.

This is now the first defect which doth infringe the credibility of these histories, which is the want of timely. and early records to digest their own history in.

CHAP. II.

Of the Phoenician and Egyptian History.

I. The particular Defect in the History of the most learned Heathen Nations. II. First the Phoenicians. Of Sanchoniathon; his Antiquity and Fidelity. III. Of Jerom-baal, BaalBerith. IV. The Antiquity of Tyre. Scaliger vindicated against Bochartus. V. Abibalus. VI. The Vanity of Phoenician Theology. VII. The Imitation of it by the Gnostics. VIII. Of the Egyptian History. IX. The Antiquity and Authority of Hermes Trismegistus. X. Of his Inscriptions on Pillars, transcribed by Manetho. XI. His Fabulousness thence discovered. Terra Seriadica. XII. Of Seth's Pillars in Josephus; and an Account whence they were taken.

HAVING already shewed a general defect in the an- CHAP.

cient Heathen histories, as to an account of ancient times, we now come to a closer and more particular consideration of the histories of those several nations which have borne the greatest name in the world for learning and antiquity. There are four nations chiefly, which have pretended the most to antiquity in the learned world, and whose historians have been thought to deliver any thing contrary to holy writ in their account of ancient times, whom on that account we are obliged more particularly to consider; and those are the Phoenicians, Chaldæans, Egyptians, and Grecians: we shall therefore see what evidence of credibility there can be in any of these, as to the matter of antiquity of their records, or their histories taken from them. And, the credibility of an historian depending much upon the certainty and authority of the records he makes use of, we shall both consider of what value and antiquity the pretended records are; and particularly look into the age of the several historians. As to the Grecians, we have seen already an utter impossibility of having any ancient records among them, because they wanted the means of preserving them, having so lately borrowed their letters from other nations. Unless as to their account of times they had been as careful, as the old Romans were, to number their years by the several clavi or nails, which they fixed on the temple doors, which yet they were not in any capacity to do, not growing up in an entire body, as the Roman empire did,

II.

I.

1.

BOOK but lying so much scattered and divided into so many petty republics, that they minded very little of concernment to the whole nation. The other three nations have, deservedly, a name of far greater antiquity than any the Grecians could ever pretend to; who yet were unmeasurably guilty of an impotent affectation of antiquity, and arrogating to themselves, as growing on their own. ground, what was with a great deal of pains and industry gathered but as the gleanings from the fuller harvest of those nations they resorted to; which is not only true as to the greatest part of their learning, but as to the account likewise they give of ancient times; the chief and most ancient histories among them being only a corruption of the history of the elder nations, especially PhoPhilo Bybl. nicia and Egypt: for of these two Philo Byblius, the feb. Præp. translator of the ancient Phoenician historian, ŠanchoniaEvang. l. i. thon, saith, they were παλαιότατοι τῶν Βαρβάρων, παρ ̓ ὧν καὶ C. 9. P. 32. of 201πOì паρéλabov ävρæπo, the most ancient of all the barEd. Viger. barians, from whom the others derived their theology; which he there particularly instanceth in.

apud Eu

We begin therefore with the Phoenician history, whose most ancient and famous historian is Sanchoniathon, so much admired and made use of by the shrewdest antagonist ever Christianity met with, the philosopher Porphyrius. But therein was seen the wonderful providence of God, that out of this eater came forth meat, and out of the lion, honey; that the most considerable testimonies by him produced against our religion were of the greatest strength to refute his own. For he being of too great learning to be satisfied with the vain pretences of the Grecians, he made it his business to search after the most ancient records, to find out somewhat in them to confront with the antiquity of the Scriptures; but upon his search could find none of greater veneration than the Phoenician history, nor any author contending for age with this Sanchoniathon: yet when he had made the most of his testimony, he was fain to yield him younger than Moses, though he supposeth him older than the Trojan wars. And yet herein was he guilty of a most gross avisoxía, not much exceeding the Grecians in his skill in chronology, when he makes Semiramis co-existent with the siege of Troy; as is evident in his testimony produced at large by Eusebius, out of his first book. against the Christians; nay, he goes to prove the truth of Sanchoniathon's history, by the agreement of it with that of Moses concerning the Jews, both as to their

II.

natnes and places, ἱςορεῖ δὲ τὰ περὶ Ιεδαίων ἀληθέςατα, ὅτι καὶ CHAP. τοῖς τόποις καὶ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν αὐτῶν τὰ συμφωνότατα ; whereby he doth evidently assert the greater truth and antiquity of Moses's history, when he proves the truth of Sanchoniathon's from his consonancy with that.

III.

p. 2. 1. ii.

Two things more Porphyry insists on to manifest his credibility. The one, I suppose, relates to what he reports concerning the Jews; the other, concerning the Phoenicians themselves. For the first, that he made use of the records of Jerom-baal, the priest of the God Ieuo, or rather Iao; for the other, that he used all the records of the several cities, and the sacred inscriptions in the temples. Who that Jerom-baal was, is much discussed among learned men; the finding out of which hath been thought to be the most certain way to determine the age of Sanchoniathon. The learned Bochartus conceives him Bochart. to be Gideon, who in Scripture is called Jerub-baal, Geogr. Sac. which is of the same sense in the Phoenician language, c. 17. only, after their custom, changing one b into m, as in Ambubajæ, Sambuca, &c. But admitting the conjecture of this learned person concerning Jerub-baal, yet I see no necessity of making Sanchoniathon and him contemporary; for I no where find any thing mentioned in Porphyry implying that, but only that he made use of the records of Jerub-baal; which he might very probably do at a considerable distance of time from him. Whether by those únoμvýμala, we mean the annals written by him, or the records concerning his actions; either of which might have given Sanchoniathon considerable light in the history either of the Israelites or Phoenicians. And it is so much the more probable, because presently after the death of Gideon, the Israelites worshipped Baal- Judges viii. berith; by which most probably is meant the idol of 33. Berith, or Berytus, the place where Sanchoniathon lived; by which means the Berytians might come easily acquainted with all the remarkable passages of Jerubbaal.

IV.

But I cannot conceive how Sanchoniathon could be contemporary with Gideon, (which yet if he were, he falls 182 years short of Moses,) especially because the building of Tyre, which that author mentions as an ancient thing, (as hath been observed by Scaliger,) is by our best Scalig. Not. chronologers placed about the time of Gideon, and about in Frag. 65 years before the destruction of Troy. I know Bochartus, to avoid this argument, hath brought some evidence of several places called Tyrus, in Phoenicia, from

Græc. p. 40.

I.

Jofeph.

c. 3.

Strabo, 1. xvi.

P. 520.

Plin Hift.
Nat. 1. v.

c. 17.

BOOK Scylax's Periplus; but none that there was any more than one Tyrus of any great repute for antiquity. Now this Tyrus Josephus makes but 240 years older than Ant. 1. viii. Solomon's Temple: and Justin but one year older than the destruction of Troy. Neither can any account be given why Sidon should be so much celebrated by ancient poets, as Strabo tells us, when Tyre is not so much as mentioned by Homer; if the famous Tyre were of so Ed. Cafaub. great antiquity and repute as is pretended. It cannot be denied but that there is mention in Scripture of a Tyre older than this we speak of, Joshua xix. 29. which some think to be that which was called Paletyrus, which Strabo makes to be 20 furlongs distant from the great Tyre; but Pliny includes Paletyrus within the circumference of Tyre, and so makes the whole circuit of the city to be 19 miles. It is not to me so certain to what place the name of Palætyrus refers; whether to any Tyrus before the first building of the great Tyre, or to the ruins of the great Tyre after its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, compared with the new Tyre, which was built more inward to the sea, and was after besieged by Alexander the Great. It may seem probable that Palætyrus may relate to the ruins of the great Tyre, in that it was after included in its circuit, and chiefly because of the prediction in Ezekiel, xxvi. 4. Thou shalt be built no more; for the Tyre erected after was built not on the continent, but almost in the sea. If so, then Paletyrus, or the old famous Tyrus, might stand upon a rock upon the brink of the continent: and so the great argument of Bochartus is easily answered, which is, that after it is mentioned in Sanchoniathon's history, that Hypsouranius dwelt in Tyre upon the falling out between him and his brother Usous, Usous first adventured εἰς θάλασσαν ἐμβῆναι, to go to sea; which, saith he, evidently manifests that the Tyre mentioned by Sanchoniathon was not the famous insular Tyrus, but some other Tyre. This argument, I say, is now easily answered, if the famous Tyre, before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, did stand upon the continent; for then it might be the old famous Tyre still, notwithstanding what Sanchoniathon speaks of the first venturing to sea after Tyre was built. So then I conceive these several ages agreeable to the same Tyre: the first was when it was a high strong rock on the sea-side, without many inhabitants; so I suppose it was, when mentioned by Joshua as the bound of the tribe of Asher. The second age was, when it was built a great city by the