NOTES.
PAge 4. Since men did Sacrifice Animals before the Floud,) this is denyed by Grotius in his Notes upon Gen. 4. 4. who saith there was no other Sacrifice of Animals before the Floud, then only an Offering of their Wool and Milk; but because in some observations of my own, which I made long since at the University, as I read along upon the Old Testament, I have among other things substantially Confuted this Opinion of Grotius, who is likewise followed in it by the late Reverend and Learned Dr. Outram in his Book De Sacrifici is, therefore I shall set down what I have written, as I find it upon Gen. 4. 4. Obtulit de primogenitis gregis sui & de adipibus eorum) dura sunt omnia & violenta in Interpretatione Grotianâ, qui primogenita gregis de lanâ, adipes de lacte intelligit. Mechelbehen, ex adipibus eorum, quorum verò? primogenitorum nempè, quorum suprà meminerat; igitur si per adipes, lac intelligi debeat, per primogenita, lana, [Page] erit Mechelbehen. Ex lactibus lanae, quo quid absurdius? verum quae tandem ratio impulit Grotium ut hujuseemodi interpretamenta confingeret? audi eum causae suae patrocinantem, Cum nihil, inquit, deo sacrari soleat, nisi quod in usu sit hominum, animantibus autem vesci ante diluvium, ut probabilior fert sententia, permissum non fuérit, dici posset oblatam lanam ac lac ping [...]issimum, quod hic cheleb vocetur, nam cheleb per [...] tranftulere 70. Gen. 18. 8. &c. vetustissimum autem morem fuisse lanam & lac offerendi ex multis historiis docet Porphyrius, haec ille. sed retorqueri potest argumentum, cum nihil Deo sacrari soleat nisi quod in usu sit hominum, homines autem vestibus ex Lanâ contextis nondum uterentur, sequitur lanam ab Abele oblatam non fuisse, legimus autem pelles & tergora ferarum prima vestimenta fuisse (cothnoth hor Gen. 3. 21.) pelles autem animalium ex quibus vestes primitùs confectae fuerunt, ex iis solummodò aut certè potissimum detractae sunt, quae venatione capiebantur, à quo censu oves tam longè removentur, quam quod longissimè.
Quod si concedamus etiam pellibus ovinis usos antiquissimos mortales, quid inde sequitur, nisi quod oves jure excoriari poterant & pelles ab iifdem inusus humanos; [Page] deo permittente detrahi? poterant igitur in hoc casu etiam, jure occidi, nam excoriari animalia sine certissimâ morte non possunt, denique si occidi possent, idque ut usibus humanis intervirent, sequitur, etiam ipso Grotio fatente, potuisse etiam in sacrificiis ritè Deo offerri.
Si quis hic interroget, quare animali [...] tunc temporis ad vestitum occidi poterant, non item ad esum, responsio in promptu est, nempe, quod in initiis rerum, si tanta animantium copia, quanta humano generi pascendo suffecisset, fuisset interempta, defecissent untique in ipso mundi exordio, pleraeque omnes animantium species; de vestitu autem alia res est, qui semel & ex unius animantis tergore confectus, etiam per plures annos perdurat, & arcet caeli inclementiam.
Lana autem, inquiet fortasse Grotius, quando simul cùm pellibus ovinis fuerit detracta, quid impedit, quo minus ritè potuit offerri? respondeo, primum, à posse ad esse non valet consequentia, deinde si hoc de lanâ concedimus, certè idem in pelle, cujus praecipuus in vestibus usus fuit, cùm nondum panni conficiendi artes invenirentur, multò magis valebit, at pellis omninò eximi non potuit, sine interitu animalis, & occisio animalis ad usus [Page] quomodocunque humanos, dat jus ad sacrificium.
Si dicas haec tergora morticinorum animantium fuisse, consideres, velim, hoc genus pro immundo habitum, fuisse, hanc autem mundorum, immundorumque animantium distinctionem, etiam ante Mosaicam legem extitisse, liquet ex diluvii historiâ, neque mihi dubium videtur, quin mundities & immundities utriusque temporis Noachici dico & Mofaici, eandem rationem habuerit, ut ità eadem animantia in utroque intervallo aut munda aut immunda haberentur, id quod ex symbolicis istius munditiei rationibus, (non enim arbitraria res fuit) de quibus nos alibi fusiùs egimus, amplius constabit. Utrum autem ista distinctio à Noacho primum inceperit, cùm de eo nihil in sacris literis disertim affirmetur, pro certo statui non potest; est autem ea probabilior sententia quae antiquiorem facit, cùm de mundis & immundis animalibus, tanquam de rê antè notâ mentio fiat; cumque animalia utriusque generis hic non sigillatim percenseantur, ut in Mosaicâ utriusque partitione videre est, sed tantum de ejusmodi animantibus in genere praecipitur, ex mundis septena, ex immundis bina arcam esse intromittenda, vero simile est Noachum tunc temporis à [Page] Deo particulatim edoctum non fu [...]sse, sed recurrisse potius ad praestitutas & praecognitas istius immunditiae leges.
Sed & alia quaedam porrò restant dicenda, quae opinioni Grotianae non minus fortiter adversantur, ea breviter attingam, ait sacra Pagina Abelem obtulisse Mebecoroth Tsono, oumechelbehen, Mebechoroth genere faeminino, quia, scilicet, hic moc in sacrificiis erat, ut faeminae potissimùm, utpote nitidiores delicatioresque aris admoverentur, quo nihil apertius opinionem illam laneam impugnat, neque clarius ostendit moris hujus summam antiquitatem, Itidem mechelbehen legitur cüm affixo faeminino, cüm adipibus istarum primogenitarum, igitur si bechoroch sunt animalia, chelbehen erunt adipes istorum animalium quod si utrumque sumatur, pro eo quod optimum est, aut pulcherrimum, aut pinguissimum, sicut Grotio visum est, idem erit, eodemque omninò recidet ac si dixisses, optimum optimi, pulcherrimum pulcherrimi, quod cùm nisi valde impropriâ locutione dici non possit, cumque obstet conjunctio copulativa, quae distinguere videtur inter becoroth & chelbehen, hoc est, si Grotio credimus, inter idem & idem, quod est absurdum, omninö concludimus conträ Hugonum Grotium, virum alias [Page] longë doctissimum, hunc locum de veris animalibus intelligi debere.
Quibus accedit, quod manifestum sit, sacrificari à Noacho caeptum esse, tum de pecuino, sum de volucrum genere, Geneseos c. 8. priusquam illi carnium esus permitteretur; quod factum est initio, c. 9. quod si quis eum ideò sacrificâsse existimet, quod jam certò sciret, se etiam ex animalibus divino permissu propediem vesciturum, adeoque deo patri benignissimo, qua si primitias novae mensae obtulisse, aut si quis fortè pertenderit, Noachum, anteà quam hoc sacrum secerit, pastum carnibus fuisse, neque res eo, quo gestae sunt, ordine narrari, id quod scriptoribus sacris non insolens esse congnoscimus; utcunque haec praecarië dicantur, & homines causae suae metuentes prodant, tamen cùm possint fortasse vera esse, de his serram contentionis nolumus cùm quoquam reciprocare.
Page 15. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with man) that the Floud was brought upon the Old World, for their many and great sins, and particularly for that of incestuous conjunctions, is beyond dispute, but whether God did then really shorten the days of Man, or whether it be only spoken, as several other things in the Old Testament, are in complyance [Page] with vulgar Tradition and Opinion, or what other possible Interpretation these words are naturally capable of receiving, I shall enquire more largely in another place.
Page 33. We have two known instances in the Ancient Roman Storie) this power of Fathers over their Children by the Old Roman Law, so as to put them to death if they pleased, is mentioned and referred to by Constantine C. Th. l. 4. tit. 8. l. 2. Libertati à Majoribus tantum impensum est, ut patribus quibus jus vitae in liberos, necisque potestas permissa est, &c. v. D. Gothofred ib—
Page 44. That very fact being made death afterwards by the Law of Moses) this was my opinion when I writ it, and I have still a strong impression that it is true, though I cannot find it, however the inference which I make from it is clear from many other instances which I have mentioned.
Page 63. Neither was this all, but the Husband was an absolute Lord over his Wife, and the Wife was in the nature of a Servant to her Husband) The dominion of Husbands over their Wives by the Antient Laws of Rome, which in this particular were Copied from the East, is thus [Page] expressed by A. Gellius out of an Oration of M. Cato noct. Att. l. 10. c. 23. Imperium, quod videtur, habet. That is, the Husband hath as much Power, as he pleaseth over his Wife; and then it follows, Si quid perversè tetrèque factum est à muliere, multatur, si vinum bibit, si cùm alieno viro probri quid fecit, condemnatur. And then it follows as another great instance of this Arbitrary power of Husbands over their Wives, that if the Husband had committed Adultery, which is the highest violation of conjugal Duty, he could not be toucht, but if the Wife were guilty of the same, it was in the Husbands power to kill her with impunity with his own hands, and without so much as bringing her to a Tryal, supposing that he caught her in the very Fact, for which his word must in this case be taken. The words of Cato are, In Adulterio uxorem tuam si deprehendisses, sine judicio impunè necares; illa te, si adulterares, digito non auderet contingere, neque jus est.
Page 88. Yet so as he was only to enjoy it till the said Year of Jubilee, &c.) that is, In case he did not Marry the Woman to raise up Seed to the deceased, otherwise, notwithstanding there was another nearer in Blood, he was to enjoy it for ever, if not [Page] in himself, yet at least in his Heir begotten by him in his deceased Kinsmans stead, and in the descendants from him, or other collateral Relations enjoying in his Right and Title for ever.
Page 92. That it hath never been broken down without the disgrace and infamy of those, &c.) See Tacitus and Suetonius in the Life of Claudius, where they speak of that Emperours Marriage to Agrippina.
Page 100, 101. They have their name from Oblivion, as Men have theirs from Remembrance) The Women are called in Hebrew Nashim, from a word that signifies to forget, the Men Zecarim, from another that signifies to remember.
Page 104. Which name is from habad, servivit, and was given him, as I conceive, &c.) this reason may very well be allowed, notwithstanding another which I have given in my discourse of the Messias c. 1. for they are not inconsistent together.
Page 109, 110. Josephus tells you it was any of the Kindred) Our Custom of Appeals in case of Murther, seems to have been taken from this Law among the Jews, though whether through ignorance or inadvertency or for what reason I know not, there are several remarkable differences betwixt the Jewish Law and Ours; for by [Page] Their Law it was only involuntary slaughter, in which the revenger of Blood had any thing to do, in Ours it is only wilfull Murther, in Theirs the Wife could not revenge in this manner the death of her Husband, but it was to be done by the Heir Male, who had the first right of vengeance, and there were besides two or three further removed in the paternal consanguinity, who had the right of revenging the death of their Kinsman wherever they should meet the Man that had slain him, and other differences there are which it is needless to insist upon, but yet, as I have said, I am still of opinion that one of these Laws was taken from the other.
Page 117. Out of Judea) or rather out of Aegypt, for in Judea this Law was now Antiquated and abolished—
Page 117. Quod post illorum mortem mansisse virgines dicebantur) This plainly shows the Aegyptian Custom to have depended upon the same reason with the Jewish, only in the word virgines which is unquestionably to be understood in this Law of Zeno's in the strictest sense, as appears by the next words, Arbitrati scilicet (quod certis legum conditoribus placuit) cùm corpore non convenerint, nuptias non videri re esse contractas; there [Page] seems to be a mistake, for by the Jewish Law the obligation to this sort of Marriages remained in case the deceased had left no Male Issue behind him, notwithstanding there were Female, as I have proved, besides these words cùm corpore non convenerint, do plainly shew the Roman Emperor, when he made this Law was utterly unacquainted with the Jewish Custom, for by the Mosaic Law though they had cohabited never so long together, yet in defect of Male Issue, the next of Kin was obliged to propagate instead of the deceased, and yet that expression quod certis legum conditoribus placuit, may and I believe does as much refer to the Jewish Lawgivers as the Aegyptian, so that upon the whole matter I am inclined to believe, if you are not otherwise satisfied with what I have written, p. 118. that the Aegyptians who seem to have continued this practice long after it was antiquated and abolished among the Jews, imposing upon the ignorance of the Romans, alledged, in their own excuse that they were Virgins whom they Married, but meant nothing else by that word, but only that they had not had Issue, or Heritable Issue by their former Husbands, and the Romans seem only to have imitated them thus far, but this excuse [Page] would not be taken to justifie a practice which was so incestuous by the Roman Laws.
Page 135. Numb. 27. 8. If a Man die have no Son, &c.) in the Hebrew it is ou ben een lo, which are the very words used Deut. 25. 5. and in this place of numbers there is no question, but the word ben is to be understood strictly, of the Male Issue, for it follows, then he shall cause his Inheritance to pass unto his Daughter, so that the words being exactly the same in both places, this, besides other Arguments which I have produced, is still the stronger sign that my Interpretation is right, when I expound the place of Deuteronomy after such a manner, as to restrain it to the Male Issue.—
Page 151. Somewhat of a priviledge in it, by inheriting the double Portion) or rather in this case the whole Estate, which was to descend to the Heir of the vicarious Bed, and in the mean time to be enjoyed by the Levir himself.
Page 179. I shall give almost innumerable Instances of this agreement) It appears in the process of this Discourse, that I have already given so many of the agreement of the Romans with the East, both as to their Manners and Language, that it can be [Page] no longer doubted that the one people, were at least in part, a Colony from the other, and that they derived a great part of their Language and of their Rites and Ceremonies from them, so that though this be a subject capable of great improvement and of being illustrated by many more instances then I have produced, or then it is perhaps possible for any one Man to think of, yet since I designed no more then only to show, what I have sufficiently done already, that the Romans were certainly a Colony from the East, I think I am excused from any further discharge of that obligation, which in this Paragraph I have lay'd upon my self.—
Page 180. If their Priests and their Sacrifices both name and thing) besides what I have said afterwards, about this very thing in the account which I give of Numa and his Laws, and of the Rites and Ceremonies introduced by him into the Religious Worship of the Romans, the very Name of Pontifex, is not à ponte faciendo, a most ridiculous Etymology in my opinion, which hath nothing but likeness of sound to justifie it self, but it is pure Hebrew, and is as much by the Interposition of a Digamma and the changing of a Tsade or a shin into the Latin x, as phoneh eth hets or phoneh [Page] eth esh. he that lays the Wood in order, and prepares the Fire for the Sacrifice, which was one part of the Priestly Office, as the sprinkling of Blood was another, and both of these Abraham is described as doing, with relation to his Son Isaac, Gen. 22. 6. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt Offering and laid it upon Isaac his Son, and he took the Fire in his hand and a Knife, and they went both of them together. and again, v. 9. And they came to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built an Altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his Son, and laid him on the Altar upon the wood. Of the insertion of the Aeolique Digamma in the Roman words derived from the East, I have given several other instances towards the conclusion of this work, and of the changing of the shin into an x, though that and the change of a Tsade into the same, be so natural that nothing can be more, yet I will give some other instances, from shish is the Latin sex, and from Reish is the Latin rex, which latter word though it be not extant any where in the Bible, yet that there was formerly such an Hebrew word, may be seen from the words reshith, and rishon derived from it, and this very word is still to be seen in the most Ancient of the Rabbinical [Page] writings, so for example, what the N. T. calls [...], that the Ancient Jews called Resh Gabbaei, as Caninius de loc. diffic. N. T. and Hottinger in his Exercit. Antimorin. have observed. See also, B [...] lex. Talmud. in voce. the Algerines at [...] day call their chief Magistrate by the Name of the Raes, and the Turks have also an Officer among them. whom they call Riseffendi, mingling an Hebrew word and the corruption of a Greek together, it being as much as [...], and what the Hebrews call Resh, that the Arabians call Rebis, by the Interposition of a Digamma, and by the same Analogy from the Hebrew din or doun signifying Judgment, is the Turkish and Algerine Divan, for a Consistory or place of Judgment, and by leaving out the n corruptly (to mention that by the way) the Tunitines call their chief Magistrate the Dey, that is, the Judge, as the Carthaginians of Old called him suffetes from the Hebrew shophet, signifying the same. Lastly, As a shin so also a samech a letter of much the same sound and nature, is by the Latins changed into an x, as from nous, fugit, is the Latin nox, because then all things vanish and disappear.
This for the Priests, then for the Sacrifices, that which was called the mola among [Page] the Romans was fron the Hebrew melach signifying Salt, as by the same Analogy form the Hebrew keren is the Latin cornu, from the Hebrew Bier signifying a Ditch or Well, is by a reduplication the Greek [...], signifying Slime or Dirt, and from the Hebrew Hen, signifying Grace or Comeliness, not only the Latin Venus by changing the h into v consonant or Aeolique Digamma as Heinsius in his Aristarchus hath with great probability observed, but also benus and bene, and benignus, and bonus. The Romans indeed in latter time not knowing the true signification of their own word, gave it the needless Epithet of Salsa, which it included in it self before, as likewise the publick and solemn convention upon the calends of their Months they called Curia Kalabra, though the Hebrew word Kahal, which is a part of the composition of Kalabra included the signification of Curia within it self, as I have shown in another part of this Discourse. Further, the Sacrifice, was called sometimes victima and sometimes Hostia, victima though it be not an Hebrew word, yet it includes an imitation of an Hebrew Custom) for victima is quasi vittima à vinciendo, whence also the Latin vitta is derived, because the Sacrifice was first bound [Page] and laid upon the Altar, before the Throat was cut, as in that passage of Genesis concerning Isaac, part of which hath been already repeated, v. 22. v. 9, 10. And Abraham built an Altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound bound Isaac his Son, and laid him upon the Altar, upon the wood, and Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the Knife to slay his Son. And to this it was that David alluded when he said Psalm 118. 27. bind the Sacrifice with Cords, even unto the Horns of the Altar. as for hostia, the very name is Hebrew, it is without question from the Hebrew word hasah, which I have shown in these papers sometimes to have a sacrificial meaning, and in that sense the Latin facio by the help of a Digamma is derived from it, and thence it was that Hostis in its first and purest signification did not signifie an Enemy, but a Pledge or Pawn which was given for the performance of conditions, and thence hostimentum, hostire, and redhostire are derived, but because such pledges were given out of the Enemies Country, and out of their number, therefore by degrees it came consequently to signifie an Enemy, but its direct and primary signification is a Pawn or Pledge, as every Sacrifice is in the stead of him for whom it is Offered [Page] up, and these hostes, otherwise called in Latin obsides, were to be hostiae in the proper sense, that is, they were to be slain and put to death, which is the signification of hasah in Hebrew and of mactare in Latin, if the conditions stipulated were not performed.
Page 183. As appears from the Books of Daniel and Esther, &c. and also from those of Ezra and Nehemiah) I cannot altogether excuse this from error, however it is true of the Books of Daniel and Ezra, that they have a great deal of Chalday in them, but the name of Esther is Chalday, though the Book be not, and so is the name of Nehemiahs Office, who was made Governour of his own Country under the name of Tirshatha.
Page 200. To whom e're it be long, I shall give another opportunity) this refers to the Sermon before Sir P. W. as it is long since Printed with additions, and I think I may pretend in what I have said in that Discourse and in the Preface, to have clearly represented all the natural reasons upon which the present excellent establishment may defend it self, and though I do not say they are the only Arguments, yet without them all other Arguments signifie very little, and they of [Page] themselves without any addition of Authorities and Traditions, though they are also of our side, are sufficient to defend us against all the reason of our Adversaries, though not against their prejudices or their malice, the first of which seems utterly incapable of conviction, and the second will never acknowledge it, let it be never so plain.—
Page 210. But of this and other matters of a resembling nature I have discoursed more largely, &c.) in my middle way betwixt necessity and freedom.
Page 228. I do therefore disown and recant those reasons, &c.) this referrs to a part of those papers in the Additions to the Sermon before Sir P. W. which, for the reasons I have already Publisht, I thought it but just and necessary to suppress; and so does that passage also a little before being, p. 226, 227. and their name put into Greek is not [...], but [...] or [...], as I have elsewhere observed against Joseph Scaliger—and the Book of Scaliger, which I referr to is his Elenchus Triheresii, written against the Jesuit Nicholas Serarius.—
Page 230. And though these reasons are sufficient to prevail with me to retract that opinion, &c.) this is also referred to some [Page] part of the forementioned papers which I thought it requisite to suppress.—
Page 267. If the Nones were quintanae fell upon the fourteenth, but if they were septimanae upon the sixteenth day of the Month) this is a mistake, I should have said, the thirteenth and the fifteenth.
Page 286. Who were used to abuse the Jews for their abstinence from Swines flesh) as in that of Juvenal speaking of Judea.
Observant ubifesta mero pede sabbata Reges, Et vetus indulget senibus clementia Porris.
And in another place of the Jews he says, Nec distare putant humanâ carne suillam.
And Petronius represents them as worshiping of Swine, out of a mistake in the true reason of their abstinence, which was because they thought them unclean.
Judaeus licet & Porcinum Numen adoret.
Page 309. Which was nothing else, but aliquid extrà & intrà muros, &c.) so the Pomaeria are described by the Roman Authors, and so it was certainly among the Jews, as appears by comparing the 4th. and 5th. verses of the 35th. of Numbers together. For v. 4. it is said, The Suburbs of the Cities which ye. shall give unto the Levites, shall reach from the Wall of the City and outward a thousand Cubits. but v. 5. Ye shall measure from without the City on the East-side [Page] two thousand Cubits, and on the Southside two thousands Cubits, and on the Westside two thousand Cubits, and on the Northside two thousand Cubits, and the City shall be in the middest, this shall be to them the Suburbs of the Cities. now there is no possible way to reconcile these two verses together, which are otherwise contradictory, notwithstanding they immediately follow one another, but by saying that the First of these places, is to be understood only of the Suburb or pomaerium without the Wall, but the other of both together, of the empty space with in the Wall, as well as without, and the City was to be in the middest, that is, in the middest of the inward pomaerium, for that which the Hebrews call hir, and we render City, does not begin with the Wall, but the Houses, and there are many places so called in the Old Testament which had no Walls at all, or in the Scripture Language, which were not fenced Cities, as the Levitical, all of them were, and so were the fitter for that use, to which I have conjectured Jeroboam to have put them, but then, if this way of reconciliation be admitted, as I think it is highly reasonable, then the Seventy are not to be excused, who have put down [...], two thousand Cubits in both places, which I believe them to have done out of ignorance, [Page] as thinking there was a contradiction in the place, and not understanding the nature of the Suburbs in those times, which were so exactly answered by the pomaeria among the Romans, which were two fold, there was pomaerium post muros, that is, the outward pomaerium, and there was murus post pomaerium, that is to say the inward, and this Livy makes to be the Etymon of the place in these words: Pomaerium, verbi vim solam intuentes est locus, quem in condeudis urbi bus quondam Hetrusci, quà murum ducturi erant, certis circà terminis inauguratò consecrabant; ut neque interiore parte aedificia maenibus continuarentur, quae nunc vulgò etiam conjungunt, & extrinsecus puri aliquid ab humano cultu pateret soli. hoc spatium quod neque habitari neque arari fas erat, non magis quod post murum esset, quam quod murus post id, pomaerium Romani appellarunt. And perhaps there is another Etymology more natural then this, and which will answer both of these significations, and denote both sorts of the ancient pomaerium, and that is [...], for what the common Greek calls [...], that the Dorique calls [...], from whence is [...], anp [...] and other words of the like nature, to be met with in our Lexicons, and taken, as I suppose, out of [Page] the Dorique writers of the Italique or Pythagorean sect, and this way, [...] is any Addition or Appendix, whether within or without the Walls of a City, that is, it is the pomaerium indifferently in both sense.
Page 310. Which the Latins call otherwise tabanus) from tabes, because they breed in the faintly and Autumnal time of the Year, or from the Hebrew teben signifying straw or reeds, because they are chiefly found in locis arundineis & Vliginosis.—
Page 311. I could show the same of the rest of the Roman Hills, &c.) I dare scarce undertake for them all, but there is one more notwithstanding, which I have not mentioned, and which I take to be of Eastern Origination, and that is the mons Aventinus, whieh I take to be from the Chalday Aben, signifying a Stone, the place where Jupiter Lapis, as Agellius tells us they had such a Deity and they were used to swear by him, was worshipped among the Romans. For in many of these cases b and v consonant are the same, as may be seen in a thousand instances in the ancient glossaries, but it shall be sufficient to instance in another word of Hebrew or Oriental growth translated into Latin, that is, [Page] the Hebrew ab, whence by the addition of a Roman termination is the Latin Avus, signifying a progenitor or forefather, for that is its first and true signification, though the use of the Latin speech have restrained it to him, whom we call the Grandfather, and this is plainly the sense of proavus, being from the Latin pro with the Hebrew ab, and signifying in general a progenitor or Forefather, as in that known place of Ovid
but yet in this word we have a manifest instoance of the ignorance of the Romans in the Antiquities and true Etymologies of their own Language, for avunculus which is from avus, and consequently from ab, is not the Ʋncle by the Father, but the Mother's side.
Ib. which is derived from the Hebrew Joresh, signifying an Inheritance) Joresh does not signifie the Inheritance, but the heir in strictness of speech, but yet even this way the Etymon holds very well, for the principle is as it were the Heir or Landlord to whom the interest is due, or if you would rather it [...]ave from Shoresh, [Page] signifying a Root, from whence the interest sprouts out and grows, it is all one to me, only this latter Etymon, though in sense it have scarce any advantage, yet in sound it is more natural then the other.
Page 312. Faenus is hanoush) from thence is also the Latin pignus, and by omitting the last letter (as from the Hebrew routs is the Latin ruo) is the Greek [...] and the Latin paena, and the English pawn, all these words implying an exchange or penalty, or barter of one thing for another, and [...] are [...] and therefore easily convertible into one another.
Page 319. What the Latins call quintus when it is a praenomen, that the Greeks call [...], an Author of this name is cited by the Old Scholiast upon Homer, [...], ad Il. n. 214. and this no doubt was a Roman Author though writing in Greek and his Latin name was Quintus.
Page 322. Are by Catullus Epigr. 17. called salisubsuli) I deny not but the Etymology à saliendo was the ancient, and indeed the only received one among the Romans, and to this Catullus himself alludes, in the Epigram cited, ad Coloniam; his words are, [Page]
And a little after.
And Varro l. 4. de l. 1. salii à saltando quod facere in comilio in sacris quotannis & solent & debent. But I only argue from the repetition of the same word, which to me is very uncouth and scarce to be mached in all the Latin Tongue, or perhaps in any other, to which it is to be added that Mars himself, who according to Macrobius was the same with the Sun was anciently called salsubsulus, as appears by this fragment of Pacuvius concerning him
Quod procul dubiò est, saith Scaliger, ex fine prologi cujusdam ut illud Plautinum,
Page 323. Lou parothka, or Lou parothk) from the Hebrew pharah without all question, is the Latin pario, and partus.
Page 326. Whe have not only the Greek [...], but sometimes by the Elision and omission of the quiescent, [...]) of this there is also another example very plain, but yet never taken notice of hitherto by any, and that is in Acheron, which the common Etymològists, for want of something to say, are used to derive from a privative and [...], but the word, by their leave, is pure Hebrew, and signifies the state after this life, for achar is post, and acharon, posterius, postremum, and by the Elision of Aleph is the word charon, which is the name of the Ferryman in the Poets, who was to waft men over into that state, not from the same [...], as it were by an Antiphrasis, a very cold interpretation, though I perceive Apulejus was of this opinion; his words are these in Apol. pro Aemiliano, where he tells us that Charon had likewise another name, and that was Mezentius, igitur agnomenta ei duo indita, Charon, ob oris & animi duritatem, & alterum quod libentius audit, ob deorum contemptum, Mezentius. which latter name of his is likewise as plainly Hebrew as the other, from the verb, maas, sprevit, contempsit, from [Page] whence maasan or meesan or some such word, signifying contemptor, as from the Chalday Tirgem, is Drogermau for an Interpreter, from the Hebrew shallem, the Turkish musleman, for a Perfect or Faithful person, from Aram Arman for an Assyrian, whence Armenus, and Armenia. So that these things do strengthen and and confirm one another; upon this occasion, I will mention another of those names by which the future state was anciently expressed by the Poets, and that is Cocytus, which the Grammarians would have to be [...], signifying to bewail and lament, but I had rather have it from [...], by which word in the Greek Anthology our See my Discourse of the true time of our Saviours Passover. Ancestours or Progenitors are denoted, as much as to say, the place or seat whether our Forefathers are gone, and from this word, if I am not mistaken, is the other derived, because of mens mourning and lamentation for the dead, and for their Parents especially, to whom the most Solemn and Religious justa were performed, neither does it signifie any thing in this case that the one of these words is spelt by an [...], the other by an [...], for nothing is more ordinary then for long and short Vowells to be exchanged into one another, as these two Vowells are [Page] changed the short into the long, in all the verbs that begin with an [...], in the preter tence, and in all the Tences and Participles where the Augment is inserted, and in all the compositions of [...], the same is to be found, as in [...], and the like, and if you would have a particular reason, why it is so here, I answer it is in compliance with the nature of the voces fictitiae that the sound may in some measure represent the signification, the long Vowel being naturally more mournful and pathetical then the short; and if my opinion may be taken as to the derivation of this word [...], I wou'd have that to be no less of Eastern origination then the other two words that have been newly mentioned, to which purpose it is to be noted that of Ancient time there were two proper names, viz. Og and Agag, which I take to be the same, that is, the one to be only a reduplication of the other, though the latter be spelt with an Aleph, the former with an Haiin, for these two letters are, as to their potestas much what the same, as I have shewn already by the septuagint, in their rendition of proper names, taking no notice of the latter of these, sometimes, as if it were perfectly [Page] a quiescent letter, and thus in the pure Hebrew, haphar, and ephar, the former by an Haiin, the latter by an Aleph are the same, though the former be usually translated, pulvis, the latter cinis, which are much what the same, and they are exactly synonymous and expressive of one another, Gen. 18. 27. where they are both used, And Abraham answered and said, behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes, in the Original it is haphar veepher and in the Seventy [...], and the latter of these words is rendred by the Seventy, Job 2. 8. by [...] a Dunghill, a signification coming much nigher to [...] then [...], and the former is translated by [...], Gen. 13. 16. and 28. 14. and by [...], Num. 19. 17. so that it is plain these words are synonymous and expressive of each other, to all which it is to be added that Ophir, which is by an Aleph, and which, as I have observed, is the name of Africa in Scripture, was so called because of the drowth and dustiness of the place, by reason of the heat of the climate, which is the confessed signification of haphar, by an haiin.
So that it being now clear that Og and Agag are possibly, and may be very probably the same name, the one being only a repetition, reduplication or ingemination of the other, I proceed from hence to observe that from the first of these names, by which the King of Bashan, conquered by Joshua is called, the name Ochus which belonged to one of the Persian Kings is derived, of whom mention is made by Diodorus l. 17. Aelian. var. Hist. l. 6. c. 8. v. Lloyd. lex. Geog. & Poet. in Ogyges. and Justim. l. 10. and from the other Ogyges, an Ancient King of Thebes, and if we may believe others, the first King of Athens, as also of Aegypt, Boeotia, and Lycia had their names, and indeed any ancient thing or person was of Old exprest and represented by this name, as Hesychius interprets the word [...] derived from it, by [...] and [...] and with him Suidas, the Etymologer and Eustathius agree, and so Nicander uses it in Theriacis
Where the Scholiast interprets it after the same manner, or rather more Emphatically, for he makes the name [...] it self to be as much as others mean by [...] derived from it, [...] [Page] [...], all which may be excellently parallel'd and explained out of Num. 24. 7. in the benedictory Parable of Balaam, He (Jacob) shall poure out the water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his King shall be higher then Agag, and his Kingdom shall be exalted: Now there is no mention of any Agag before this, and yet if I am not very much deceived, this is a prophetick comparison of Saul, who was to be the first King of Israel, and was a tall and comely person, with another Ancient King of great renown and fame in those times, and who probably lived before the Floud, being a Person of a Gigantick stature, for the Scripture tells us Gen. 6. 4. that there were Gyants in those days and he probability, as being the tallest, biggest and most Gigantick was their King, according to that known saying, which was Anciently the great rule of Elective Kingdoms,
And God complying with this humour of mankind, that prevailed then so much in the World, was pleased to appoint Saul to be their first King; of whom it is said, 1 Sam. 9. 2. that from his shoulders upward [Page] he was higher then any of the People, which conjecture if it be admitted as true, as it must be acknowledged not to be improbable, then it will follow that the Ogygian Floud, and the Floud of Noah are the same, notwithstanding that the generality of Chronologers have placed them at so great a distance from one another, but the History of those times being so very confused and imperfect, we are not obliged by their Authority so much, as to neglect other reasons that offer themselves, but it is in this as in many other things, that are perplext, uncertain and obscure that he is
And still further to confirm this, it is to be observed, that notwithstanding some have made the deluge of Oggges to have been only a small and inconsiderable inundation of Attica or some one single Country, yet Nonnus in his Dionysiaca makes it to have been universal. where speaking of the Ogygian Floud he saith l. 3.
Secondly, Justin Martyr expresly puts Inachus and Ogyges as cotemporary together. in orat ad Gentiles. [...]. now this Inachus is without question the same with [...] or Noah, and though they are both made by the same Iustin Martyr and others to have been contemporary with Moses, yet this proceeded only from this, that there is such a person as Agag, whom they thought and not without reason, to have been the same with Ogyges mentioned in the Mosaic writings, as I have shewn, but does it follow from thence, that they were cotemporary together? or will it not follow by the same way of arguing, that Moses was cotemporary with Adam, and with the Creation it self? or is it not more likely that Balaam in his benedictory Prophecy, referred to some person, well known, of Ancient times, by which both Balak and the Israelites might take an estimate of that happiness which was afterwards to attend the latter of these? Thirdly, When it is Prophecyed of Saul by Balaam, that he should be higher then Agag, this, as I have said referrs to the great bulk and and stature of the Autidiluvian mortals, and is another argument that Agag and Ogyges are the same, and thence i [...] was [Page] that [...] in Greek did not only signifie that which was Antient, but also that which was monstrous for its bulk and greatness, [...], by the latter of which words Suidas hath interpreted it, and Heliodorus uses [...], for a man of an extraordinary size and stature, and Hesiod [...], speaking concerning Styx in his Theogonie,
[...]—
For the same that Homer calls [...] in Il. [...].
And in another place where Achilles swears by his Scepter, that is, by Justice, and by God the Fountain of it, he concludes
Fourthly as it is now plain, why so many writers after one another, being led away by the mistake of the First whom they followed, have placed Ogyges in the time of Moses, so it is no less plain why they [Page] made him King of Attica, and why the Floud of Ogyges was by them supposed only to have overflown that province. For Attica, as I have shown p. 354. of this Treatise was so called from the Hebrew hathik, signifying Ancient, and the Inhabitants that came thither from the East, were called by an Hebrew name hathikin, or the Ancient people, by which it came to pass that the Greeks having a Tradition that the Floud of Ogyges happened among the hattikim, or, as they would call it, according to their own way of termination the [...], this gave occasion to all that fable, that Ogyges was an Ancient Athenian King and that the Floud in his time, happened in the Province or Territory of Attica where he Reigned.
Fifthly, If we lay both these Graecian Traditions together, that Ogyges lived in the time of Moses, and that he Reigned over Attica in that Age, the latter of which mistakes I have now discovered upon what reason it depended, and the first as I have said, (that is, that which I have mentioned first, for it is the latter in order of time) is owing to this that there is such a person as Agag or Ogyges mentioned in the Mosaick writings, I say, if we compare these things together, they will sufficiently [Page] betray and expose one another, for it is ridiculous to think that Balaam referred to any such King of Attica, a place with which neither Balack nor the Israelites had at that time any Correspondence, much less was he so [...]amous and well known among them, that the King of Israel who was to come many Ages after, should be Proverbially compared to him, and that it should be said of him, that he should be higher then Agag, and that his Kingdom should be exalted, as if Attica, a small and inconsiderable spot of Ground, had been some vast and Formidable Empire; nay, I dare vouch for most, if not all the Jews now living, or that have lived ever since this Story was first broached, that they are and have been ignorant, of any such Athenian King, and so at this rate this Prophecy would not have been only obscure and unintelligible when it was first uttered, but would remain to this day among the number of those difficulties, that are to be explained at the coming of Elias.
If it be urged that Balaam in this Prophecy referred to Agag the King of the Amalekites, who was afterwards Conquered by Saul, I answer, that I do believe Balaam in part to have referred to this, [Page] for Agag was a Successor, though at a great distance, of Balack, and Ruled over the same Country that the other did, and it was in requital of the injuries done by Balak, that this overthrow fell upon the Amalekites in the days of Saul, 1. Sam. 15. 2, 3, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Aegypt; now go, and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both Man and Woman, Infant and Suckling, Ox and Sheep, Camel and Ass. But yet I say, that this, though it was a partial fulfilling of this Proyhecy, yet it is not all that prosperity and increase of honour and power, which is shadowed out under it, First, because Agag in comparison, was but an inconsiderable Prince, and the Israelites when they came out of Aegypt, though nothing so strong as in the time of Saul, were more then a match for the Moabites and Amalekites, at that time, wherefore it is said, Num. 22. v. 3, 4, 5. that, Moab was sore afraid of the People: and Moab was distressed because of the Children of Israel, and Moab said unto the Elders of Midian, now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the Ox licketh up the [Page] Grass of the Field. and v. 5, 6. the words of Balak in his Message to Balaam, are, Behold, there is a People come out from Aegypt: behold, they cover the face of the Earth, and they abide over against me, come now therefore I pray thee, curse me this People, for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the Land; for I wot, that he whom thou blessest, is blessed, and he whom thou cursest, is cursed. So that despairing of any success against them, by a fair Battel, he was forced to make use of Sorceries and Enchantments, but it proved in the event, as Balaam himself expresses it, that there was no Enchantment against Jacob, neither any divination against Israel. And if they were so little able to resist them then, what shall we think after so many several succeeding generations, when the Children of Israel were for number more Formidable, for strength more United, and when the Government was settled upon a certain, and as it then appeared, an Hereditary foundation, the Kingdom being established in the line and person of Saul? Or how could that be thought so great an accession to the Israelitish power and Kingdom; as that it should deserve [Page] so lofty and magnificent a Prediction as this seems to be, being uttered with all the rapture and extasie of a Prophetick spirit) to be wholly taken up, and utterly exhausted in the narrow and trivial Contemplation of it? Secondly, When it is said of Saul that he should be higher then Agag, there is no question, as I have said, a manifest allusion here made to the Tallness and Comeliness of the person of Saul, and therefore if this Agag who lived in his time, were only pointed at, it would have required such another description of his person also, that so the completion of this Prophecy might the more clearly and manifestly appear, for to say, that Saul should be higher then a Dwarf, or then a person of ordinary Stature, was certainly no such magnificent representation of his person, as to deserve a Prophecy at so great a distance of time, to be bestowed upon it, but now Agag is no where described after this manner, (though I deny not but being King, if the Kingdom of Moab were Elective, he might probably be Taller then the usual sort of People, for the reason already mentioned, and perhaps for this reason, for the Comeliness of his Person, and the Majesty of his Character, he was spared by Saul when the rest of the [Page] Amalekites were destroyed) and this is another indication that some other besides him, is in this place likewise to be understood.
Thirdly, In the Book of Esther the Story is Famous concerning Haman the Son of Hammedatha, who is frequently called the Agagite, c. 3. 1, 8. c. 8. 3, 5. c. 9. 24. in the firstof which places for they have omitted the mention of it, looking upon the repetition to be needless, in the rest) the present Copies of the Seventy have [...], but if we consider how Religiously carefull, the Jews have always been in the preservation of their Copies, from all kind of corruption beyond the Greeks, or any other nation, how often it is repeated in the Hebrew, whereas it is but once mentioned in the Greek, how much more likely it is that a corruption should steal into one place, then into four; and again how unlikely it is, that a corruption should be so constant and every where the same, in four several places; all this will be sufficient to persuade us, that we are not in this place and consequently in all the rest, to correct the Hebrew from the Seventy, but the Seventy from the Hebrew. Wherefore instead of [...], I read [...], for Og, and Gog and Agag are the same, and [Page] so Num. 24. 7. where it is in the Hebrew, vejarim meagag malco. His King shall be higher then Agag. There the Seventy render it [...], the Kingdom of Gog shall be exalted, where though they appear to have followed another reading then the Hebrew Copies do at present, and a reading certainly much inferiour to it, or rather directly opposite to the sense of the place, yet thus much is certain, that what the Hebrew calls Agag, they have rendred by [...], taking no notice of the Guttural as in the instances already produced.
Haman the Agagite, is as much as Haman that was descended of Agag, not that Agag who together with his whole Family, and consequently his posterity too, was destroyed and cut off by Saul and Samuel; but some other, and I chuse to Interpret it of this Antidiluvian Agag or Ogyges, and that this is spoken of him to make him appear the more Illustrious, that so his fall in the sequel of the Story might be the more remarkable and signal, and if you say that he also perished together with all his Family and dependents in the Floud, and therefore could leave no posterity behind him, I grant, (upon supposition that he is not the same person with Noah) that [Page] this is very true, but yet the Greeks had a Tradition among them, which, without question, they received from the East, that Ogyges escaped in the Deluge, that happened in his time, for so Africanus in Eusebius speaking of that Ogyges, (or as he calls him [...]) [...], from whom the first deluge took Euseb. praep. evang. l. 10. its name, saith that he was [...], saved, when others generally perished in the waters; so that by this Tradition he is confounded with Noah, who did really make his escape; but there is a Testimony of Cedrenus which makes him to have perished, and this depended upon a Tradition that made Ogyges to be a distinct person from Noah who was saved; by all which it appears, that the History concerning him is, as I have already said, and proved, very obscure, confused and uncertain, partly by the corruption of the Tradition it self, to which all Antiquity is unavoidably subject, and partly by the mistakes and Anachronismes of the Greeks, the causes of which I have already partly represented, the words of Cedrenus are [...]. [Page] that is, in the time of Moses there was a certain great or Gigantick man, of the seed of Japheth, who being a native of Attica, reigned over it for the space of thirty and two Years, his name was Ogygus, and in his time happened that Floud, which was peculiar to Attica, in which himself perished, and all that province was drowned; in which words there is nothing at all true, as I think I have already made it appear, by discovering the grounds of the mistakes in them, but only that there was such a man, as Ogygus or Ogyges, that he was a great or Gigantick person, and that a great Floud happened in his time, only when he saith that this Gigantick Ogygus was of the seed of Japheth, there seems in this also, as well as in what hath been said concerning his being King of Attica and co-temporary with Moses, to be a stricture of truth in the corruption it self, for in the first place the Scripture speaking of the men that lived before the Floud, saith expresly, that there were Gyants in those days, Gen. 6. 4. and again in the Relation of the lewdness of those times, which drew down the Deluge afterwards upon them; it saith, that the Sons of God, saw the Daughters of Men lb. v. 2. that they were fair, in the Hebrew it is chi toboth hennab, that they were goodly or [Page] had a goodly aspect, and the sense would have been the same, if it had said, chi japhoth hennah, that they were fair, as our Translation renders it; wherefore since by the Sons of God are understood the [...], the Sons of the Great men or Princes of those times, who did what they pleased without Controll, as some of the Ancient Interpreters have rendred it; Ogyges at this rate will be a Prince descended of one of those Japhoth, those fair ones, to whom the Sons of God went in, and begat Sons and Daughters upon them, and this is all that was at the bottom of that mistake of the Greeks, that Ogygus was descended of the Family of Japheth; to confirm which yet further, it is to be observed, that Scripture stories delivered down by Tradition in the East from thence, yet were not always delivered in Scripture words, but only in words of a like signification, or words relating to the circumstances of the Story, as I have elsewhere observed out Discourse of the Tetragrammaton and also in that of the Messias, c. 1. of Bochartus, who took his hint from sanchuniathon that Sarah in the Eastern Tradition was called Annobret, because she was past the time of Child-bearing, and Isaac [...] or Jachid, because he was the only Son, and the like: so that Japhoth, being perfectly synonymous to Toboth, and [Page] indeed more properly signifying beauty, then the other, here is all that can be desired to make it at least a tollerable conjecture.
Again, as from Agag is Ogyges, so from Gog, by the Elision of the Guttural is Gyges, both of them the same person, as I will now prove, and as Cedrenus saith of Ogygus, that he was [...] a great or Gigantick person, so Ovid represents the Ancient Gyges, for there were several afterwards of the name, in his fourth De Tristibus Eleg. 7.
Where though he reckons all these as so many impossibilities and figments of Antiquity, yet there is no question but in all or most of them, there was a ground of v. Pale phat. in opusculo [...]. truth, though miserably adulterated and disguised by the vanity or ignorance of the [Page] Greeks; particularly, as to Gyges, when he calls him Centimanum hundred handed, it may very well be Interpreted of the extent of his power, or the fierceness and violence of his Reign, and what he adds afterwards in the next words semibovemque virum, halfe man, half Ox, may refer to the brutish and belluine manners of the Antiduilvian times, or rather it belongs not to Gyges at all, but to the Fabulous of Minotaur of Crete. But not to Argue from bare possibilities, that is, from things that are very uncertain; there is a place of Tully in his, 3d. De Officiis that will fully make it out, that Gyges and Ogyges, and that the Ogygian and the Noachic Deluge are exactly the same, his words are these: Hinc ille Gyges inducitur à Platone, qui cùm terra decessisset magnis quibusdam imbribus, in illum hiatum descendit, aeneumque equum (ut ferunt fabulae) animadvertit, cujus in lateribus fores essent; quibus apertis mortui vidit corpus magnitudine inusitatâ, annulumque aureum in digito, quem ut detraxit, ipse induit, (erat autem Regius Pastor) tunc in concilium pastorum se recepit, ibi cùm palam ejus annuli ad palmam converterat, à nullo videbatur, ipse autemomnia videbat, idem rursus videbatur, cum in lucem annulum inverterat, itaque hâc opportunitate annuli usus, reginae [Page] stuprum intulit: eâque adjutrice, regem dominum interemit, sustulit quos obstare arbitrabatur: nec in his eum quisquam facinoribus potuit videre, sic repentè annuli beneficio Rex exortus est Lydiae. I do not say that there was not a certain Gyges King of Lydia, for it is certain there was, nothing is more known in the Grecian story then this, and it is concerning him the Epigrammatist spoke when he said,
And in another Epigramme in the same Anthology,
But I say that here are two Gyges's plainly confounded together, the Ancient Gyges or antidiluvian Ogyges, with the Lydian King, and besides, abundance of Fable into the bargain, for it is plain in the beginning of this Story, he speaks of a certain Gyges, in whose time a great Floud happened, cùm terra magnts imbribus decessisset, which answers exactly to the Mosaic description of the Floud of Noah, in which the rains from [Page] Heaven were accompanied with Chasmes and Ruptures of the Earth, Gen. 7. 11. In the six hundreth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventh day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great Deep broken up, and the windows of Heaven were opened. For the Story of the ring it is all of it Fabulous, but yet so, as the very Fable it selfe discovers the truth, and shows the Story to have travelled into Greece from the East, for it proceeded only from a different understanding of the same word, which two differences were afterwards put together and jumbled into the same Story, for tabah signifies to be immerst or drown'd in Hebrew, and the same word with the addition only of an he, which can hardly be distinguished in pronunciation signifies, a ring, and by this means it happened that the Floud, and the Ring came both into the same Story, but for the inprovements that are built upon this foundation, I am not bound to give an account of them, for the progress of Fables, and oftentimes their rise too, is owing to nothing but impudence on the one hand, and credulity on the other.
For the brazen horse which this Citation speaks of, it is no other then the Ark of Noah; and whoever it was that brought [Page] this Story into Greece, made Noah and Gyges or Ogyges to be the same person, as it is indifferent to me whether they be or no, only this in the general I contend for, that the Floud of Noah and the Deluge of Ogyges are the same; but now to make this out, that the brazen Horse in this Fable, is the same with Noah's Ark in the reality, and truth of the History it self, it is to be considered what he says of the brazen Horse, that it had fores in lateribus, doores in the sides, for thus the Ark it self is described Gen. 6. 16. where God gives instructions to Noah concerning the fashion of it—A window shalt thou make to the Ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above, and the door of the Ark shalt thou set in the side thereof, with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
Secondly, When it is said, quibus apertis vidit corpus magnitidine inusitatâ, that, opening the doors of this house, he saw in it the body of a man of an extraordinary bulk, this is also literally true if you do but invert, and turn it the other way, not that opening the doors of this horse he saw the body within, but that opening the door or window of the Ark, he saw the same without it, as Noah certainly, did when the waters were dried up, see many [Page] such bodies of Gigantick stature, according to the size and proportion of those times, lying upon the Ground, and the very mention of this corpus magnitudine inusitatâ, shews this Deluge to have been very Ancient, when the size of men was much greater, then any the Greek Histories, if they will speak truth, can give us an account of, as found among themselves.
Lastly, The reason why this corrupt and interpolated story calls the Ark a brazen horse, is this, in Hebrew Tsi signifies a Ship, and sous perhaps also sis, for jod and vau, in Chalday and Hebrew at least, which is no great difference, are actually exchanged into one another, signifies an horse, and sis at this day among the Turks, is the word for a Groom, or one that looks after horses, to which if we add the consideration of that Wood, of which the Ark was built, the whole mystery will quickly be explain'd, it was hatsei gopher, gopher wood, that is, Wood daub'd over and covered with pitch, as all Ships use to be; the whole verse in Hebrew runs thus, hatsei gopher tahaseh otsoh, vecapharta otsah mibaith onmichouts bacopher, where gopher, and copher are without qustion the same, as appears by the word, gaphrith which hath the signification of copher, and is as much [Page] as pix bitumen, sulphur, the caph being exchanged into a gimel, a letter very nigh of kin to it, as from the Hebrew gamal, is the Greek [...] and the Latin camelus, and copher did not only signifie pitch, or any such bituminous matter or substance, but it is also used for a certain sweet smelling Flower, Cant. 1. 14. &c. 4. 14. which the Greek Interpreters in the first of these places render by [...], and the Latins from the Greek call cyprus, whence because of the abundance and plenty of this sort of Flower that is to be found in it, the Island of Cyprus took its name, as Eustathius and Stephanus are of opinion, and as the Island took its name from the Flower, so there is a certain sort of Brass, which took its name from the Island, which is called in Greek [...], in Latin Cuprum or aes Cyprium, or as we call it in our Language, Copper, and the Hebrews without question, as they did the Cyprian Flower, and the Island that took its name from it, so they would also have called that sort of Mettal which took its name from the Island by the name of Copher, but whether they did or no, it was obvious for the Greeks when they understood that the Ark was made of a certain substance which had the Epithet of Copher, to interpret it of that [Page] which in their Language they called [...], this being the nighest in sound to it, and they not understanding the true signification of the Hebrew word, which was the true reason of this adulteration of the story; and this it self was enough without any likeness in sound as to the words by which an Horse and a Ship are denoted, though they are at no great distance from one another, to make the story pass among the Greeks rather with the circumstance of an Horse, then a Ship, because a brazen Ship was impossible to conceive, and the story of the Trojan horse, which was of very great antiquity among them, was a thing that might possibly give credit and authority to this legend also, by their resemblance one to another.
To conclude, as from Agag, is Ogyges, and from Gog by the Elision of the guttural Gyges, so from the name Gyges, is the Greek [...], and the Latin Gigas; and to return to that which gave occasion to all this, from the Greek [...], by the Elision of the [...], which answers to the Hebrew quiescent, and is actually cut off in [...], and by changing the [...] into [...], of which sort of permutation instances have been already produced, is the [...] in the Anthology, for Ancestors or Progenitors, whence the word Cocytus, is derived, and [Page] made to signifie the Region of the dead, which I look upon as no far secht Etymology, neither as I presume, will any man else, who hath been conversant about such matters; though I perceive Claudian was of another mind, and therefore I am not sollicitous about, where in allusion to the Grammarian Etymology from [...] he says, l. 2. in Rufinum
and such another passage there is in his 2d. De raptu Proserpinae: but whether this conjecture will be admitted or no, yet I am willing to hope that what I have offered in my way to it, will not be unacceptable to learned Men, and because it must needs be no inconsiderable advantage to the credit and authority of the Sacred Volume, if I can shew of Deucalions Floud, as well as I have done of that of Ogyges that it was the same with Noahs, because by this means there will be a strong current of antiquity, and an unanimous consent of sacred and profane Authors together, for the asserting the truth of such an universal deluge, as we by the Scriptures are taught to believe, therefore before I leave this matter, I will endeavour to shew the [Page] same of Deucalion that I have done of Ogyges, viz. that his Floud and Noahs were the same. And I begin with the words of our Country-man Mr. Lloyd, the late learned Revisor and Completor of Charles Stephans his Geographical and Poetical Dictionary, whose words under the word Deucalion are very remarkable and sufficient of themselves to demonstrate all that I intend, they are these: Haec fabula Poetica, sub verborum & nominum involucris veram universalis diluvii à Mose Dei servo descriptam historiam proposuit, & artibus Satanae factum est, ut quaecunque in sacrâ historiâ occurrerent, Ethnicorum figmentis in fabellas verterentur: Apud Lucianum libello de v. etiam H. Grot. de v. R. C. l. 1. qui integrum Luciani locum exscripsit. Deâ Syriâ extat locus, ex quo manifestum est per diluvium Deucalionis intelligi, non inundationem illam quâ olim Graecia absorpta est, sed diluvium universale quod fuit Noae temporibus. Quinetiam Plutarchus libello de animalium industriâ, scribit columbam ex arcâ Deucalionis emissam attulisse indicium recedentis diluvii. Secondly, The old Scholiast upon Homer citeing Apollodorus for his Author, tells us that when Ad Il. [...]. 10. Jupiter had resolved to destroy the Brazen Age or Generation of Men, Deucalion by the council and instigation of Prometheus built an Ark, [...], he calls it, which word by the Addition of Al the Arabian [Page] prefix, I take to be plainly from the Hebrew Aron signifying an Ark, and this confirms what I have said, that Scripture Traditions, that is, Traditions that were got into the Heathen World, and were derived from thence, were frequently delivered in other words then those by which the Scripture expresses them; Now these two things are certain, that Noah built an Ark, and that he did it by the express Command of God himself, after he had taken a resolution to destroy the Old World, Gen. 6. 13, 14. And God said unto Noah the end of all flesh is come before me, for the Earth is filled with violence through them; and behold I will destroy them with the Earth, make thee an Ark of Gopherwood. And when Deucalion in the Fable is said to have done this by the instigation of Prometheus ( [...]) Prometheus is that name of God by which his providence and wisdom is denoted, and that sometimes in the Heathen Mythology, however disguised and adulterated with inconsistent and ridiculous Fables, Prometheus was no other then the Supreme Numen, appears by this, that the same things are attributed to him, which are ascribed to God in Scripture, as his stealing fire from Heaven to animate his first man, which is an argument that he himself was [Page] before him and consequently was no mortal, is a Fable stolen, with reverence be it spoken, out of the History of the Creation, where God is said to have breath'd the nishmath chajim, the breath of life into Adam, and so likewise his making the first man of the dust of the Earth, of which all the Ancient Poets are so full, is manifestly Transcribed from the same Original. Lastly, The Fable of the Vulture or Eagle perpetually knawing upon his Liver, without being ever able to devour it, which the Poets, not understanding the Hierogliphick Mysteries of the East, from whence this Fable was derived, have represented as done by way of punishment inflicted upon him, was only an Hieroglyphical or Symbolical adumbration of the Eternity of the Divine Nature, and of its necessary or self existence; for this Vultur or Eagle, is Time, which is as it were, perpetually preying upon the Eternal nature, without being ever able to consume it, and that this is so, appears very plainly by Hesiods description of the thing, who tells us, that matters were so ordered, that whatsoever the Eagle ate in the day-time, was repaired in the night, where speaking concerning this Hieroglyphick Eagle, he says,
But what Hesiod calls an Eagle, Petronius will have to be a Vultur, in Hendecasyllabo. v. etiam Fulgent. in mythol.
And the meaning of Hesiod, when he says that reparation was made in the night, for what was consumed in the day, is to be explained by the course of the Sun, which sets out fresh and lusty every mornning, and is, as the Psaimist excellently words it, as a Bridegroom coming out of his Chamber, and rejoyceth as a strong Man to run a race, but when he is got to his Meridian he begins to decline, he is first, as it were, hot and fiery, and then, having spent his vigor, languishing and faint, till the day is concluded by the night, and time it self seems to be at an end; but the next morning these decays and wearinesses are again repayred, and he sets out as fresh and vigorous as ever, which is a very plain and natural explication of this place of Hesiod, and showes Prometheus to have been the same with the Sun, who was worshipped by all the Idolatrous Nations for the Supreme Numen, no wonder therefore, if what is ascribed to the true God [Page] in Scripture, be in the fabulous antiquity attributed to Prometheus.
And by this discription of Prometheus (which I confess supposes the Eternity of this Universe, as it is now ordered and framed, at least à parte post, but that is not to the purpose) we see what notion the Ancients had of Eternity, namely that it was not a standing or quiescent, but a successive duration, notwithstanding that our Schoolmen will not hear of any such thing, and as they thought of duration that it was successive, so of the Divine Nature, they had always an opinion that he was an extended substance, till Plato and Aristotle and other Scholasticks began by subtleties while they pretended, and perhaps really designed to assert and vindicate the Divine existence, to rob him of his Divine Amplitude and Omnipresent extention, and by subtleties dispute him into nothing.
Furthermore, As the gnawing of the Eagle or Vultur signifyed, without question, the succession of an Eternal duration, so the Pillar to which Prometheus was tied, signified the stability, the strength and lastingness, and never failing Eternity of that succession, and the Cords or Bands with which he was tied to it, was the [Page] Immortality or permanency of the Divine Nature, which is commensurate with, and closely linked to, the utmost possibility of the most unbounded, unfathomable, and bottomless duration; and the Mountain Caucasus upon which the Poets feigned him to lie bound, is another indication that by Prometheus they understood the Sun, by reason of the great, and as it is usually represented the Fabulous height of that Mountain, which was so great that Philostratus in his Second De Vitâ Apollonii, hath had the impudence to report that the top of it does, as it were, pass through the Sun, and seems to divide it into two parts.
I will not deny that I have a shrew'd suspition, that it was the opinion of the ancient World as farr as from the first beginning of Idolatry, (when men began to worship the host of Heaven) which is very ancient, that all vitality and life, nay, so much as thought and speculation themselves, were owing to the heat and influence of the Sun, and that this was their meaning when they talked of Prometheus his stealing fire from Heaven, which was that divinae aurae particula, or in the Language of the Scripture that Nishmath chajim, that breath of life, by which the first Mortals [Page] were inspired, and which hath been since propagated by generation, and in this opinion they were confirmed by a tradition which they had, which was afterwards transmitted in writing to posterity by Moses, that God made the World in six days, which they so interpreted, by distinguishing the day and night from one another, as indeed hereb does properly signifie that time, when things are mixt and confounded, and cannot be distinguisht from one another, so that it is impossible to work any longer, I say, they so interpreted these six days work, as if in the night the Opificer had rested (as he did afterwards upon the seventh day) which was always thought to be the Suns method, to work in the day and to repose and cool himself in his Western bed at night, until at length the Antipodes were discovered, and that opinion vanisht, together with the errour by which it was occasioned, not that they looked upon all things to have come by chance as the Democriticks and Epicureans afterwards did, for this in comparison was but a modern error, but they had a notion of the Sun and the Stars, that they were wise and understanding beings, and that they did not only see all things that happened upon Earth, but that they [Page] did also order and dispose them by wise See Dr. More in his immortality of the Soul, and mystery of Godliness, and in his defence against Butler. and prudent measures; but this is nothing to us, we are no farther obliged by Antiquity, then Antiquity it self shall appear consonant to sound and impartial reason; we know for certain that the Stars are more ignorant than any of their worshippers ever were or could be, and that what reason and understanding they have not in themselves, they cannot possibly communicate to us, we know there is an older Shemesh, from S [...]amesh [...] ministrare.— Antiquity than this, which makes the Sun, as his name imports, to be no more than a Servant, and that he and the Stars were appointed for nothing else, then only to be for signes, and for seasons, and for days, and for years, which expressions in the Mosaic writings derived from the Cabbala of Discourse of the true time of our Saviours Passover. much Ancienter times, though they might possibly be Interpreted in favour of Astrology, as I have elsewhere noted; yet it is enough that their most plain, obvious, and easie sense is not this, and that we are assured from other considerations, that Astrology is as vain as the pretenders to it, and that the predicting tribe are now themselves of opinion that the Sun and the Stars are stark blind, in the middest of all the wonderful discoveries, which they have made by their light; but enough of this, [Page] [...]t is sufficient that I have discovered who Prometheus was, that he was the Sun, who was worshipped by Idolatrous Antiquity as the Supreme Numen, and that by his impulse and council, Deucalion was perswaded to build him an Ark, as Noah did by the Command of God, so that these things have a perfect resemblance, and hitherto there is a very fair correspondence of the Stories of Deucalion and Noah with one another.
Nay, in the Third place, there is not only mention made in the profane Antiquity of Deucalions Ark, but also of the mountain upon which it rested, as the Scripture tells us it rested upon the Mountain of Ararat, for so Juvenal speaks,
Fourthly, What Juvenal speaks in the latter part of this citation, which is more or less insisted upon by almost all the Poets, that Deucalion and Pyrrha by casting Stones behind them, produced a new generation for the repairing of Mankind, the meaning of this is thus to be interpreted, [Page] Eben is [...] and Aben is Filius, both of them consisting of exactly the same Letters, and both of them derived from the same Root, banah, which is indifferently applyed in Hebrew to building and generation, which gave occasion to the Tradition, that they begat or produced Children by casting of Stones, for Children and Stones are both of them in the plural called Abanim; and from hence, because of the likeness or rather sameness of these two words, Ben or Aben and Eben, proceeded that saying of our Saviour, which it is probable was taken from some proverbial speech among the Jews, expressing the extent and largeness of the Divine Power, to which nothing is inaccessible or impracticable, which does not imply a contradiction to be done, Matth. 3. 9. Think not to say within your selves, we have Abraham for our Father, for I say unto you that God is able of these Stones to raise up Children unto Abraham,
For if it be true that the Gospel of St. Matthew was Originally written in Hebrew, an v. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 3. 24. & 5. 10. ut & Hieron. catal. script. Eccles. opinion which hath not wanted good Authority in Antiquity to vouch it, and there are Hebrew Copies of it extant at this day, then the beauty of this sentence consisted in this, that banim and abanim chimed to one [Page] another, by a Figure in Rhetorick which the Greeks call [...] and the Latins adnominatio, and to which the Hebrews are wonderfully addicted, as in that place of Genesis concerning the Ark, which hath been already produced, hatsei gopher tahaseh othah, vecaphartu othah mibaith oumichouts bachopher, but more especially in another, where the chiming is admirable to consider, he that spilleth Mans Blood, by Man shall his Blood be spilt, in the Hebrew it is, shophek dam haadam baadam damo jishaphek. And the attending with good heed and judgment to this one thing, that is, to the different acceptation of words, which, being altogether the same or very like in sound, have yet notwithstanding divers significations, will certainly explain many things in the Heathen Mythology, which are not yet understood for want of this one observation.
Fifthly, The Scholiast upon Homer does not only say, as Iuvenal does that the Ark being carryed upon the Water, rested at last upon the top of a Mountain, and he names Parnassus, according to the ignorance or vanity of the Greeks, who applyed the Antiquities of others to themselves, as hath been seen already in the Story of Ogyges, and is still further exemplified in [Page] this of Deucalion, but he expresses the time of its tossing and fluctuation upon the Waters, after such a manner as gives us to perceive, from whence the relation was Originally taken, [...], for nine days and as many nights. I know the Scripture tells us that it rained upon the Earth in the times of Noah's Floud, for fourty days and fourty nights, and that the Ark was floting upon the Waters for a much longer space of time than that also; but that which I take notice of, is the manner of expression, [...], nine days and nine nights, as the Scripture saith, fourty days and fourty nights, which is plainly an Oriental mode of expression, and the one is borrowed from the other, for the Greek Language would have expressed all this by [...] with them generally signifying the [...], or the whole circuit of twenty four hours, unless when the day and night are opposed to one another, as in the citation of Hesiod above produced, or sometimes where the sense does manifestly restrain it to the continuance of the Sun above the Horizon, and for the difference of the numbers, it is nothing to the purpose, for the numbers being usually expressed not by words at length, but Numeral [Page] Letters, it is obvious for any man to perceive how prone these things are to corruption, since the alteration of a Letter makes a change in the Number, and by consequence a corruption in the Story, and sometimes corruptions proceed by several steps, which it is impossible for us to trace, only in the Story which is left us, if there be still remaining a stricture of true and genuine Antiquity, this is a greater argument that the Story in its Original is not fabulous, then the deviations from that Original pattern, by ignorance or time are, that it is
Sixthly, The first thing which Apollodorus in the Scholiast makes Deucalion to have done, after the Waters were dryed up and he came out of his Ark, is to pay his thanks for his deliverance by a Sacrifice to the Author of it, [...], saith he, [...] where [...], is Jupiter, or God that. had dissipated and driven away the Waters, from the face of the Earth; and this was the first thing that Noah did, after he came out of his Ark, when the Waters were dryed up, Gen. 8. 20. he builded an Altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean Beast, and of every clean Fowl, and offered burnt Offerings on the Altar.
But Seventhly, There is still another place of the same Scholiast upon Homer, which is more to the purpose, then, or at least as much as, all that hath been already spoken, it is upon Il. [...] 233, 234.
[...].—
Upon which place the Scholiast puts this question, [...]. that is, What is the story of this Dodonean Jupiter, and what is the place from whence he received this name; to which question he returns this answer, alledging Thrasibulus for his Author, [...]. that is, Deucalion after the Floud which happened in his time, having got safe upon the firm Land of Epirus, preached, or rather Prophecyed in or by an Oak, and by the admonition or Counsel of an Oraculous Dove, having gathered together such as were saved from the Floud, made them to inhabit together in a certain Place or Country, [Page] which from Jupiter and Dodone, one of the Sea Nymphs, or one of the Daughters of Oceanus, they called Dodone; in which words there are several things very worthy of remark, First, if we admit a very small Anachronism in the Greek Story, as I shall shew manifestly there is another very great one by and by, then it is true of Noah, what Thrasybulus in this Relation ascribes to Deucalion, [...], that he Preached or Prophecyed by or under an Oak or Tree, not after the Flood, as this Story would have it, but before it, for so St. Peter expresly calls him, a Preacher of Righteousness, 2 Pet. 2. 5. and in the First Epistle, c. 3. 19, 20. speaking of the Spirit of Christ, he says, by which (Spirit) also he went and Preached unto the Spirits in See my Discourse of the Messias, c. 1. Prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, when the Ark was a preparing; which words are to be understood of Noah Preaching by the Spirit of Christ, to the Spirits in Prison, that is, not which were so then, but were so for their disobedience when this Epistle was Written, and long before it, and continue so still, and the Subject of all his Sermons was, to preach Repentance and Obedience to them, to tell them roundly of [Page] their Enormities and to forewarn them of that universal Destruction by a deluge of Waters, which without a speedy and hearty Reformation, would certainly overtake them; this it is certain he did before the Flood, and this is properly [...], it is to Prophecy, being Acted and Possessed by a Divine, or reputedly Divine Spirit, which the Ancient Mortals used to do with so much Zeal, and so Enthusiastick, and Rapturous a concern, that they differed little as to outward appearance from downright Bedlams and Madmen, as the young Prophet was accounted who came by Commission from Elisha to Anoint Jehu, 2 Kings 9. 11. where one of the Captains of the Host puts this Question, Wherefore came this Mad fellow to thee? and it is certain that [...] in Greek, which is the most Ancient name of a Prophet or inspired person, is from [...] insanio, and the Ancient Priestesses of Bacchus, were for the same reason called [...], and such sort of Persons in the Latin Authors, are called Lymphatici, Ceriti (that is, acti à cerere) Furore, vel aestro perciti, and by the Greeks, [...], and the like; and this perhaps may be a good account, why Noah was not believed when he foretold the Deluge to [Page] the old World, because they looked upon him rather under the notion of a Madman than a Prophet.
But yet I do not so wholly confine the Prophetick Spirit of Noah to the times before the Flood, as to affirm it afterwards to have ceased, for there is no doubt but he continued to Preach the same Doctrine to his Children and Descendants after the Flood, which he did to the rest of the World before it, that unless they continued: See my Discourse of the Messias, c. 1. stedfast in their Obedience to God, or at least heartily Repented of all their wilful Declensions and Deviations from it, and actually entered upon a new and a better course of life, they must expect, though not the same, for God had promised that he would not Drown the World any more, yet equally terrible and severe Judgments to light upon themselves, to which it is to be added, that in the 9th. of Gen. upon occasion of Cham's disrespectful and undutiful behaviour towards him, in not covering his Nakedness, we find him Actually in a Prophetick Fit, v. 24, 25, 26, 27. And Noah awoke from his Wine, and knew (by that Prophetick Spirit, wherewith he was then Acted) what his younger Son had done unto him, and he said, Cursed be Canaan, a Servant of Servants [Page] shall he be unto his Brethren, and he said blessed be the Lord God of Shem and Canaan shall be his Servant; God shall enlarge Japhet and he shall dwell in the Tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his Servant. It is true therefore that Noah was a Prophet, that is, a Preacher of Righteousness, and praemonisher of things to come, both before and after the Flood, so that here is nothing but what is very agreeable to the account of Deucalion given by Thrasybulus, and though it be true that the great and principal part of his Prophetick Ministry was transacted in the times before the Flood, yet, for ought I know, this Author when he affirms him likewise to have Prophecyed after it, might referr among other things to this particular Story, wherein Cham is prophetically blasted and accursed, and Sem and Japhet are pronounced blessed.
For Secondly, Which is the second thing observable in the Words of the Scholiast, it is not only said in general of Deucalion, that he was a Propbet, but that he did [...], Prophecy by or under some Oak, or other tall and spreading Tree, for the Text tells us that this thing happened while Noah was in his Tent, Gen. 9. 20, 21. Noah began to [Page] be an Husbandman, and he planted a Vineyard, and he drank of the Wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his Tent, Now it is to be observed that the first Mortals were used to pitch their Tents in Shady and Woody places, for the greater Warmth and Shelter, as Juvenal speaks of the Reign of Saturn and the Golden Age,
And Macrobius speaking of the most Ancient times, describes them thus, Cùm rudes primum homines & incuriâ sylvestri non multum à ferarum asperitate dissimiles meminerit vel fabuletur antiquitas, nec hunc eis, quo nunc utimur, victum fuisse, sed glande prius & baccis altos, serò sperâsse de sulcis alimoniam—but what is still more to the purpose it is said of Abraham, Gen. 13. 18. that he removed his Tent and came and dwelt in the Plain, of Mamre; where the Seventy have it, [...], and again, c. 14. 13. speaking of the same Person, [...], and c. 18. 1. we find him to have had Communion [Page] with God, as Deucalion is said to have Prophecyed [...], the words are [...] in all which places if we cousider the Antiquity and unquestionable skill of the Seventy Interpreters above all others that have ever appeared, their constancy in the rendition of this word, and that in all these places the word occurs in the Plural Number, Beelonei Mamre, it will be more rational for us to follow their example, than that of the Rabbinical and other Modern Expositors, and to Interpret the word rather of Trees than of Plains, and that which led them into the mistake was this, they thought the Preposition Beth, could not be rendered by [...], or [...], answering to the Latin propè or juxtà, as the Seventy have done, but only by the Preposition in, which would indeed have made the place absurd, as if the Tent of Abraham wherein he and his numerous Family had their Habitation, were pitched in the hollow of a Tree. Elan in Chalday, is rendred by the Rabbinical Interpreters themselves by Arbor, and the same without question is the signification of Elon in Hebrew, not for any Tree in general, but more especially the Oak, under which as being the [Page] tallest, thickest, most spreading and most durable, and lasting Tree of any other, the Ancients seem most frequently to have performed their Religious Acts of Sacrifice, Incense, and Adoration, as Pliny speaking expresly of the Druids, who derived it without question from some other people more Ancient than themselves, sayes L. 16. c. 44. Roborum eligunt lucos nec ulla sacra sine eâ fronde conficiunt, and from thence the Luci in Latin had their name à lucendo, from the Light and Blaze which the Sacrifices afforded. Elon therefore is from El Deus, as much as to say the Tree of God, as Alah which is rendred by execratus est, juravit, adjuravit, is from the same root, and is as much as to Swear by God, and to call down the Divine Vengeance in Case of Perjury and false Swearing, and hence it is that the Oak among the Greeks and Romans was arbor Jovi sacra, Dedicated and devoted to the Service of God, as the Holly seems to have been of later times and from thence it had its name, Alah & Elah being nownes, are also rendred by Quercus, and from the latter in the Plural is found Elim, which differs but very little in sound from Elohim, and does very strongly patronize this conjecture. being as much as to say sacra arbor, and the confounding of these three following wordstogether, and mistaking the one for the other, El, and Elon and [Page] heljon, which is the Name of God in the Story of Melchisedeck, gave occasion to the Fable that Mankind, whom the Scripture truly asserts to have been first made and brought into being by God, had their first Original from the heart of Oaks cleft in sunder, according to that passage in the Anthology which I have already pointed at, and will now cite,
And Juvenal speaks also to the same purpose
Where when he says that they were luto compositi, the Original of this is well enough known, and hath been already accounted for, and for the other though perfect nonsense and plainly inconsistent with what follows, that they were luto compositi, yet thus they received it from Graecia mendax, the great depraver of all History, and who was her self as often deceived as she imposed upon others, as in this and other instances which I have produced: [Page] to conclude this matter from the Hebrew Elon or Elan, by the Addition of a b or g, as from the Latin uro is bustum, is the common Greek [...], the Aeolick [...], and the Latin glans, signifying an Acorn or the Fruit of the Oak.
Thirdly, As a third observable from these words of the Scholiast upon Homer, or of Thrasybulus from whom he borrows them, it is to be observed, that he also takes notice of the Dove or Pigeon, which was so remarkable a circumstance in the History of the Flood, [...], &c. that by the Oracle or indication of a Dove he setled a Colony, and together with those others that had escaped the Deluge took up his Habitation in a certain place, which from Jupiter and Dodona one of the Sea Nymphs, or one of the Daughters of Oceanus he called Dodona: now this Oracle of the Dove is nothing else, but that Noah made use of this Animal, to know whether or no, and when and how far the Waters were abated, first he sent out a Raven from which he had no intelligence, because it returned no more, for it is said that it went forth to and fro, until the Waters were dried up from off the Earth, Gen. 8. 7. not but that the Waters must at that time be supposed [Page] to have been actually abated, unless we should suppose this Raven to have been always upon the Wing for so many days together, which is utterly impossible and absurd to imagine, but it is the Nature of this Bird to Perch and Roost upon the tops of Trees, which by this Story it is plain, began in some places to discover themselves above the Waters, but this Doves and Pigeons will not do, and therefore to know whether the Waters were any where so abated, as that the dry Land began to appear, the Dove was a more proper Messenger than the Raven, wherefore it is said, v. 8, 9. that he sent forth a Dove from him to see if the Waters were abated from off the face of the Ground, but the Dove found no rest for the sole of her Foot, and she returned unto him into the Ark; and v. 10, 11. and he stayed yet other seven days, and again, he sent forth the Dove out of the Ark, and the Dove came into him in the Evening, and lo, in her mouth was an Olive-leafe pluckt off, so Noah knew that the Waters were abated from off the Earth, because the Olive was a Tree of no considerable height, and the Dove a sort of Bird that is not found to Perch or rest it self upon any sort of Tree, from which two things compared together he [Page] guessed that the Ground was somewhere dry. Lastly, v. 12. He stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the Dove which returned not again unto him any more; by which Noah understood now, that the Ground was dry, as before, and that the Dove had not only a place for the sole of her Foot, but also met with Food and subsistence abroad; and therefore it is immediately subjoyned, v. 13. That Noah removed the covering of the Ark, and behold the face of the Ground was dry, and this I think does as plainly confirm and explain the [...], the Oracle of Deucalions Dove, which taught him when and where to come out of his Ark, and betake himself again to the dry Land, as it is possible for any two agreeing Stories in Antiquity, to explain, confirm or vindicate one another.
But Fourthly, The fourth thing to be observed from these words, is that Deucalion called this place, where he and the rest that had escaped came out of the Ark, and as it seems pitched a Tent and took their Abode, at least for some certain time, in it, by the Name of Dodona, which Dodona, if we can give a clear and intelligible account, who or what it was, or why so called, this will give new light to the [Page] Story of Deucalion, and may perhaps confirm what I have now so often asserted, that he and Noah were the same: the Scholiast here tells us, the place was so called [...], from Jupiter and Dodona, but why from Jupiter I pray? when Dodone is sufficient, for there is the whole name of the one in the other, so that if this pretended Nymph gave name to the place, there is no need of Jupite [...] or any other to help her in it, since the names of the Place and the Nymph, are both of them exactly and to a Letter the same; but here we see a manifest instance of the Ignorance of the Greeks, and of their corrupting the Traditions of the East, for want of understanding the Language in which they were delivered, for it is true, as the Greeks did still retain a smattering of the business, that Dodona was so called [...], not from the word, but the person so called, who is in Hebrew called Adonai, and by the Carthaginians or Phaenicians Donai, as I have proved elsewhere from that salutation of Plautus in his Penulus Discourse of the Tetragrammaton. Avo Donni, and from thence by a reduplication is Dodone, for a place Dedicated to the Worship of Jupiter, or of the Supreme God, as from the Hebrew Tor is the Latin Turtur, and this is certain [Page] that the first thing Noah did after he came to Land, was to do Sacrifice, and usually such places by vertue of any Sacrifice at any time Offered, retained their name and Consecration for ever after; so Jacob when he Consecrated Bethel by pouring Oyl upon the Stone which he had used for his Pillow, the Consecration seems to have remained for ever, for so the words of Jacob seem to entimate, Gen. 28. 22. This Stone which I have set up for a Pillar shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee, and the same is to be seen in the History of Abraham, of whom it is said, Gen. 12. 8. that, he removed from thence, (viz. from the plain of In Hebrew it is Elon Moreh, and the 70. [...], which confirms what I have said above that the Ancients used to pitch their Tents in Shady and Woody places. Moreh, v. 6.) unto a Mountain on the East of Bethel, and pitched his Tent, having Bethel on the West, and Hai on the East: and there builded he an Altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him, and again, c. 13. v. 3, 4. and he (Abraham) went on his journeys from the South even to Bethel, unto the place where his Tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai, unto the place of the Altar which he had made there at the first: and there Abraham called [Page] on the Name of the Lord, by which it is plain that this place being once set apart by Abraham for the performance of Religious Worship, retained its former Sanctity without any new Consecration, and was chosen above all others thereabouts, for the exercise of Religious Duties, by virtue and in right of its former separation: and usually at the time of any such Consecration, the place received some Name or other intimating the occasion of it, and signifying that peculiar manifestation of the Divine Favour and Presence, which God was pleased at that time to afford: so Abraham called the Altar which he built and the place in which it stood, Gen. 22. 14. (upon which his Son Isaac was to have been Sacrificed) Jehovahjireh, and Moses upon Gods promise to destroy and root out Amalek, Exod. 17. v. 14, 15. built an Altar and called the name of it Jehovah nissi, for he said, v. 16. because the Lord hath Sworn, that the Lord will have War with Amalek from generation to generation, and Gideon upon the Angel of the Lord saluting him, and saying, peace be unto thee, Jud. 6. 23. and so removing the consternation he was in v. 22. Alass O Lord God, for because I have [Page] seen an Angel of the Lord face to face (therefore I shall surely die) built an Altar in the same place unto the Lord, v. 24. and called it Jehovah-shalom, and the Text goes on to tell us, unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites, he does not mean that the place stands still where it was, which it will certainly do as long as the World endures, but that the Altar was still to be seen at the time when that Book was Written, and that the memory of what had happened was carryed on by Tradition to succeeding Generations.
Wherefore the Altar which Noah built and the Sacrifice which he Offered upon it, being perhaps upon the most memorable occasion that ever any Sacrifice was offered upon, a Sacrifice of Thankfulness and an Altar of Praise not only for the deliverance of Eight persons from the Deluge, but for the continuance and preservation of Mankind, for the hopes of a new World, and a People to come, in the room of those Nations that had been destroy'd, and being in its self so large and so magnificent a Sacrifice, a Sacrifice of every clean Beast and Fowl that had entred into the Ark, in both of these respects it deserved the the most particular and signal commemoration, and the place where [Page] this Solemnity was performed, was without question Famous through the East, and could not but be perpetuated by some name or other, expressing the occasion and meaning of its Consecration, and this as I have said might be Dodone or Dodonai by reason of its being set apart to the Service and Worship of the Supreme Numen, by whom both the Flood was brought upon the Earth, and the deliverance of Noah, his Family and posterity from it was graciously contrived, but this if it do not fully express the whole thing, as indeed I think it will not, yet there is another Etymology yet behind, which is both more expressive, and more natural than the former, when the Sacrifice of clean Beasts and Fowls had been Offered upon the Altar, it is said, Gen. 9. 21. that the Lord smelt a sweet savor, and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the Ground any more for Mans sake, &c. so that Dodone is plainly as much as Doddonai, beloved of God, as this place above all others might well deserve to be called, in which God accepted so graciously the first Sacrifice after the Flood, and was reconciled to Mankind upon it.
I am not positive that it was called thus by Noah himself, it is enough if it had any other Name of an aequipollent or Synonymous notion, as Jacobs Gal heed, and the Chaldeans Jegar sahadutha were the same; as the Phaenician Annobret, and [...] were the same with Sarah and Isaac among the Hebrews, and the Name of this Altar might possibly be Jehovah shalom, as that of Gideon was called, or Jehovah Jariach, the Lord smelt, meaning what follows, eth riach hanichach, a sweet savor, or a smell of rest, with allusion to the Name of Noah, and this by the Phaenicians might be called by the Elision of the Aleph out of Adonai, according to their Custom, (which is still a further confirmation of my Etymology of [...]he Chaldean Saroas) Doddonai, that is, From hasor by the Elision of the guttural. [...], beloved of God. But yet the Phaenicians, though they did sometimes curtail the Hebrew Adon, or Adonac, yet this was not perpetual among them, sometimes they pronounced it at length, as [...] From [...] is the Latiu stella qu. sterula. and [...] in Greek are the same, and so Hesychius explains it without the omission of the Guttural as a Phaenician word [...], and from thence without question the Greeks received as well the Name as Worship of Adonis. again, I deny not that there was [Page] such a place in Epirus as Dodone, only I say it was a Colony of Phaenicians, and was built in memory of that deliverance from the universal deluge which happened in the time of Noah or Deucalion, and had its name from that other Dodona or Doddonai which Noah himself consecrated by erecting an Altar, and Offering Sacrifice upon it, immediately upon his coming out of the Ark, as York and Boston in New-England are so called in remembrance and imitation of the same Names and places here at home, and for the proof of this, it is sufficient to consider, First, That Bochartus a Man of singular knowledge in this sort of Antiquities, tells us expresly that the Islands adjacent to the main Land of Epirus were Anciently Planted and Inhabited by Phaenicians, and therefore it is very likely the distance being so very small, that they Landed upon the continent likewise. Secondly, that the Scholiast so often cited, tells us, that the place took its name [...]; now I have shown plainly that it cannot possibly be from both of these, and I conceive that there is no way possible, by which it can appear to have taken its Name [...], but that which I have assigned and laid down. Thirdly, As it cannot be deny'd that this is an [Page] Etymology so natural, that nothing can be more, so it is to be considered, that not only the Phaenicians, but the Greeks themselves do sometimes for better sound sake, where the article being a Vowel immediately precedes it as in the Carthaginian salutation Avo Donni, contract and cut off the first Letter of Adonis, only upon this account, to make some amends for it, they change the preceding short Vowel into a long, as in that of Theocritus. [...].
Fourthly, as another indication that this Dodona had its Name [...] as the Scholiast expresses it, we find no mention of Dodona in Antiquity, but there is a connexion of Jupiter together with it, sometimes Dodona is made to be a Person, and then she is the Daughter of Jupiter and Europa, sometimes it is a City of Chaonia in Epirus, and then we are told, that the place was Consecrated to Jupiter, and that there was a Wood hard by it which consisted all of Oaks, which was Jupiters Tree, as hath been already proved and explained, and Herodotus hath delivered it as the report of Antiquity, that in this Wood there was a sort [Page] of Oraculous or Prophetick Pigeons or Doves, which though he explains by saying, that in Thessaly they were used Anciently to call Soothsaying or cunning Women by the Name of [...], yet, not to question the matter of fact, which it is no great sin to do, in an unlikely tale of Herodotus his telling, who does not always tell truth, notwithstanding that no Man can boast more of his sincerity than he does, I appeal to any Man whether this does not look like a very cold and jejune Interpretation, or whether it be not more likely, especially considering what hath been said already, concerning the Dove of Noah and Ducalion, that this is only a traditionary relick of the Ark, and of the Dove that was sent forth from it, which Ark was probably built of Oak (for the Gopher Wood in the Hebrew is indifferent to any sort of Pitched Wood [...]ss. de [...]0. Interp. whatsoever, and the [...] of the Seventy after all that Isaac Vossius hath offered concerning it; may be explained of any sort of plained Wood whatsoever, which is by that means made quadrangular) the Oak by its natural strength and firmness being the most likely to resist the violence of the Waves, and to remain afterwards for the longest interval of time, as a monument of the deluge and the deliverance [Page] of Noah and his Family from it, and as the Ship was probably built of Oak, so the Dove that was in it, though it was not really Oraculous or Prophetick, yet it might well enough give occasion to such a Tradition among the Greeks, and perhaps even among the Easterlings themselves, at a considerable distance of place and time from the Ark, for the reasons already explained.
Fifthly, As a Fourth indication of the same thing, that Dodone was [...] in that sense which I have explained, and that it was not a Greek, but an Exotick and an Eastern Name, I observe that the Scboliast saith of her, that she was [...], one of the Sea Nymphs, or one of the Daughters of the Ocean, which is not inconsistent with what was said before, that she was the Daughter of Jupiter too, but only the meaning is, that this Name Travelled by Sea into Greece, as all things that came that way, before the Art of Navigation was known, and when the Sea was thought to be the boundary of Nature, (as Seneca expresses it upon occasion of Alexanders deliberating with himself Swaser. 1. and his confidents that were about him, whether he should put to Sea or no) were thought and said to be born or bred of the Sea, and in this sense Clymene the [Page] supposed Wife of Japetus is by, Hesiod in See upon that passage of Apollodorus, l. 2. c. 1. concerning Inachus that the was the Son of Oceanus and Tethys, our Learned Dr. Gale [...]ath this observation hoc ideo finxerunt Greci quoniam navi in Pelopannesum venit— his Theogonie called [...], that is, born or bred of, or belonging to the Ocean,
[...].
For I shall show by and by, what in the Mythology of the Ancients was meant by Clymene, and that this very word and the whole story concerning Japetus and Clymene is of Eastern Growth.
Sixthly, as the Sixth and Last observable from these words of Thrasybulas in the Scholiast upon Homer, I would have it taken notice of, that when he saith of Ducalion, that he did after the Floud [...], this must not be understood of any Tree whatsoever, as [...] in its most Ancient and proper sense is indifferent to any, as appears by the compounds [...], and [...], in all which words that part of the composition, which is taken from [...], is indifferent to any kind of Tree whatsoever, but it is to be interpreted of the [...], which is the Interpretation of the Hebrew Alah or Elon, and is as much as to say the Tree of God, or the Oak under which the most Ancient [Page] of the Patriarchs were used to pitch their Tents, and though I am not solicitous, whether this prophetick Ministry of Deucalion be in the reality of the thing, placed before or after the Floud, knowing how subject and prone the Greeks are in matters of so remote Antiquity to mistakes and Anachronisms concerning them, and though it may be said, that all the taller and more spreading sort of Trees were destroyed and rooted up by the violence of the Waters, which in a great measure I acknowledge to be true, yet it may be considered on the side of the Scholiast, that there are some exceptions of necessity to be admitted, from what hath been said above concerning the Ravens not returning to the Ark; that the Oak, by reason of its natural firmness and large spreading Root, was perhaps the fittest to withstand the force of this universal deluge; that the pressure of the Water was lateral and in a manner equal on all sides, as Mr. Boyle hath observed and proved in his Hydrostaticks, of common Waters not determined any whither in a certain Stream or Channel, so that this may seem rather to have served to uphold and keep stedfast the Trees which it met with, than to have destroyed or thrown them down, were it not [Page] that by the continual poaching and soaking of the Water into the Earth, their Roots would be so loosened, as that then their own weight, or preponderancy one way more than the other, may be thought sufficient to overturn them and throw them down; But to this it may be Answered, supposing so violent a Wind to be added to this cause, that the Roots of a Tree may be very much loosened and weakened, before this effect will follow; that in such tall and massy Trees they usually descend deeper than any Rain Water can reach, so as to poach or loosen the Earth to any considerable degree; that it is not unreasonable to believe that the Earth at some considerable depth, might be rather hardened and rendred more close and firm by the weight of the incumbent Waters, than any way sok'd or loosened by it, as fresh Water is sometimes found at the bottom of the Sea, the reason of which, our ingenious Mr. Hook in his Micrography imputes to this, that by reason of the great weight of the superincumbent Water, the Salt particles are squeezed upwards, and the pure aqueous parts are brought so close together, that they cannot receive or imbibe into themselves the Saline any longer, and if this be the case of Water it self, a thing [Page] so fluid and so porous as that is, it must be much, more true of the Earth, which by reason of its comparative solidity is more susceptible of such a pressure, than any Water can be, and in experience it appears, that places which are known to have been recovered out of the Water, such as a great part of Holland and the Fenny parts of England are, are usually plain and flat, because of this pressure of the Water, which was once equal and of long continuance over the whole surface, and this made Antiquity believe that Aegypt it self, as large a Tract of Ground as it is, was once recovered out of the Water, or at least was forsaken by it, because of its flat and equal Soil: not that I believe the force of any Floud to be such, as that it shall turn a Mountainous Country into a plain, but it is sufficient in general to observe from what hath been said, that in so great a pressure of Waters, the Earth at least at some considerable depth, would rather be hardened, than any way loosned by it, and perhaps. in such prodigious showers as those were, by which the universal Deluge was occasioned, descending with a violence so great and so equal together, it might so compress and harden the Earth in some places, where no subterraneous [Page] Ebullitions met with the Rain that descended from above, which they neither did nor could do equally in all places, that the Waters might not perhaps penetrate so farr, as in showers that are more gentle, if they be but constant and of long continuance.
To all which it is to be added, that it is certain that Noah pitched his first Tent there where the Ark it self rested, and where he came out of it, when the Waters were asswaged, and this was upon the Mountains of Ararat, upon the top of which the Waters could not have any thing near so much force, as in the Plains underneath, where there was a so much greater weight of superincumbent Waters, besides that it was so much the longer before these places were overflown, and in proportion to their height they were so much the sooner dry, than other places, neither could the Waters fall with so great force upon them, as upon the plain and level Country, because their journy of descent is comparatively so small, which the longer it is, so much the greater is the weight of the descending body, so that if what I have offered above, concerning the Waters hardening rather than softening the Earth, may be admitted, it will hold also here though in a less proportion, [Page] and if it will not, as I think there is no reason why it should be rejected, then whatever force there was in the Waters on the Level for the destruction and overthrow of all Trees, or other obstacles that they met with in their way, was for the reasons just now mentioned infinitely less upon the tops of Mountains, besides that when it said Gen. 8. 1. That God made a Wind to pass upon the Earth and the Waters asswaged, this Wind, as it must be acknowledged by its determination one way, to have destroyed the equality of the lateral pressure of the Waters, and as such to have been a natural cause of overturning every thing that came in its way, so it had probably but little force upon the tops of Mountains, the Wind it self being occasioned by those Watery exhalations, which were first exhaled from the top of the watry surface, and by consequence made the depth less to the Fathom of the Mountains themselves, and left that Wind less force to act upon them, for the Floud never rose higher than Fifteen Cubits above the tops of the highest Mountains, and it is probable did not continue long at that high Water mark, so that that which was a prodigious Deluge, in respect of the whole Earth, was little more than an ordinary Floud in respect of [Page] the highest Mountains, and particularly those of Ararat upon which the Ark rested almost Three Months before the tops of the other Mountains were seen, and almost Five Months before the Ground was wholly dry, and that Noah did first pitch his Tent upon a Mountain, and particularly upon that of Ararat, is plain from this, not only that the Ancient Patriarchs and first Mortals were used to Inhabit upon such Mountainous places, for the convenience of Divine Worship, because in these they used to offer their Sacrifice and to pay their Devotions, but also because till Men began to cohabit in larger communities, these were the places, of greatest security from the wild Beasts and from one another, and of the farthest prospect to discover an approaching danger, but after the Floud, there were these Two particular reasons why Noah should chuse such a place for his first Habitation, First, Because it was most wholesome, considering the Damps which the Earth had contracted by so long an inundation: and Secondly, Because, otherwise we must suppose Noah not to have stirred out of his Ark for Two Months and an half after she struck upon the Land, and by conseqence to have deferred his thank offering for so long a space [Page] of time, which without ingratitude he could not do, and therefore it is not reasonable to suppose it; to conclude, the Trees upon the tops of Mountains, and particularly upon those of Ararat, which are represented as the highest of all, did therefore stand more firmly than in the places underneath, because those Mountains themselves intercepting and interrupting the passage of the Waters, might cause either a swister Current, or an Eddy and violent return of those Waters upon themselves in the intermediate spaces, and so Homer describes Oaks upon the top of Mountains, as standing the firmest of any other [...] Il. [...].
But as I said before, so I say still, I am not sollicitous for the credit of Thrasybulus as to this particular, whether John a Nokes or Deucalion, who is said to have Prophecyed by or under a Tree, where he pitched his Tent, did this before or after the Floud, though after it there is this further to be said for the credit of this Tradition, that it is probable there were scarce any Trees left, but upon the tops of Mountains, and [Page] that as the Plains were unwholesome, and for a while uninhabitable for the reason already mentioned, so the tops of Mountains would have been too bleak and piercing, without some shade to protect them against the sharpness of the Weather: and thus much upon occasion of this passage of Thrasybulus produced by the Scholiast upon Homer, and for that other cited out of Apollodorus, P. 22, 23. ed. Paris. 1675. it is still extant with some very inconsiderable verbal alteration in Apollodorus his Bibliocheca.
But there are still Two other resemblances remaining betwixt Deucalion and Noah, which I have not yet mentioned, the First is this, the Scripture saith of Noah, Gen. 6. 9. Noah was a just Man and perfect in his Generation, and Noah walked with God, and so Ovid saith of Deucalion and Pyrrha his Wife,
And with these Two Lucian exactly agrees T. 2. p. 883. ed. Solmurii, 1619. in his De Deâ Syriâ, [...]. that is, Deucalion was the only person that was left to the second Generation or the Generation after the Floud, for [Page] the sake of his piety and his wisdom, and then describing the manner of his deliverance, he does it almost in such terms, as if he had transcribed it from the Original of Moses himself, in these words, [...], that is, the manner of Deucalions escape was this, he betook himself to a large Ark or Ship which he had, and caused his Women & Children to do the same, and he was followed by Hogs, and Horses, and Lyons, and Serpents, and all other Animals that breed and feed upon the Earth, which entred into his Ark two by two, and he received them all, who did him no hurt, laying by their fierce and Savage nature, and maintaining an entire friendship both with him and one another, so that they all Sailed in the same Ark together, so long as the Waters prevailed. This is what the Greeks have recorded concerning Deucalion, where when he says that all Animals entered into the Ark by two's, the thing speaks for it self, and tells us undenyably from whence the Greeks [Page] received their Tradition, and when he takes no notice of the Seavens which is the number of each species of the clean Beasts and Birds that entred into the Ark, it was manifestly for this and no other reason, that the Greeks had no such distinction amongst them of clean and unclean in the several species, and that the propagation of them was all that they regarded in this Tradition concerning the Floud, now this was common to the clean with the unclean Animals themselves, that Two of them only were preserved meerly upon account of propagation, if nothing else had been to be considered, but the odd one of each kind was to be for a Sacrifice, as it afterwards proved, when Noah came out of the Ark, and the other Four were added in regard of the great consumption and expence which there was to be afterwards of the clean species, as well for Sacrifice as Food for ever, not but that in reality the Greeks had such a distinction of clean and unclean among them, for we do not find that the unclean kind were used in the Sacrifice and very rarely in the Food of any nation, as I have observed already, in the beginning of this Treatise, but I say, they did not attend to this distinction, neither had they any such express and explicit partition among them.
Further Lucian, as well as Thrasybulus Jaiim is vinu [...] and jonak in Hebrew is columba, which likeness of sound made some attribute the Dove to Pachus. and others, makes mention of the Dove, with reference to the Floud, though he seems not to have understood it himself, p. 903. ib. where speaking of a certain Image or Statue he says [...]. and the reason he gives why some attribute this Image to Semiramis is, [...] because Semiramis was Worshipped in the form of a Dove, but it is manifest that this reason belongs to Deucalion as well as her, and that it was the Dove made it suspected to be Deucalions Image.
Again, It is further observable in Lucian, what he says concerning the manner of the Floud it self, which agrees very well with the Mosaic description, and with the story of Gyges above mentioned out of Cicero, and by him Transcribed out of Plato in his 2d. De Rep. [...] p. 882. ib. [...] that is, the Earth gushed out with abundance of Water, and great Rains descended from above, as also great Rivers or currents from the higher Grounds, and the Sea overflowed its banks, till all things were covered and immerst in Water; and all that Generation was destroyed. [Page] The same character of a Good and Virtuous person which Ovid and Lucian have given of Deucalion, is likewise allow'd him by Apollonius the writer of the Argonauticks, who gives him the Title of [...], and says other things concerning him which do sufficiently show that Epithet to have been his due. l. 3.
Where wen he says that Deucalion was the first that built Cities and Temples, and that he was the first Monarch, this must be understood of the Period after the Floud, for there were Kings and Cities, and the true God, to say nothing of Idolatry, was Worshipped by Adam, by Cain and Abel, by Seth and Enos, and others before it, but all that Period, though it were not utterly forgotten by the Greeks, yet it shall be very clear before I have done, that they had but a very obscure remembrance of it.
Plato in his description of the many Flouds which from time to time were supposed by the Greeks Anciently to have happened, affirms every Floud to have wiped away the memory of all things that [Page] were before it, there being only left a few v. Plat. in Critiâ. p. 1100, 1101. & in l. 3. de leg. statimi ab initio. & Euseb. ex Platone. praep. Evang. l. 12. c. 15. Mountainous and Barbarous People, ignorant of all things even before the Floud, and so taken up with the cares and the necessities of life after it, that they had no time to look back into former Ages, nor any means to preserve those few Traditions which were left among them, and this he makes to be the reason why Arts and Sciences had made so small a progress in his time, and why the History of former Ages extended to no higher Antiquity than it did; but herein was Plato manifestly deceived that he did not perceive at this rate, if only the Inhabitants of Mountains, or those that could get thither upon the surprise of a Floud coming upon them, escaped, that very many Species of Animals must have perished, being bred and overtaken by the Floud in the Plains below, so that unless we suppose the Earth after every Deluge to have been so prolifick, that it could produce all the several species anew, which yet, as absurd as it is, I perceive Plato sometimes to have done, and then there would be no need, to salve the credit of an universal Deluge, for any to be saved upon the tops of Mountains, since mankind and all other Species might by this expedient be repaired without it, there [Page] is no other way to Salve it, but by supposing such an Ark or Ship, as the Scripture, and from thence several profane Authors have done, whether some of each Species might betake themselves and be reserved for the replenishing a new World, and therefore when Lucian, who speaks expresly of the Ark, and of all the several Species entring into it, speaks afterwards of a Tradition, as if Men in the time of Deucalions Floud, had saved themselves upon the tops of Mountains, and upon the top Branches of the tallest Trees, where, if they could be saved from the Deluge, they would have been sure to have starved with hunger, he subjoyns immediately [...] ib. p. 899. these things are altogether incredible to me.
But yet notwithstanding, thus much of Plato is agreeable to truth, that after any such universal Deluge, and by consequence after that of Noah too, partly for want of any standing Monuments to preserve Tradition, and partly by reason those that escaped must needs be wholly taken up in the cares and necessary incumbrances of Life, which must needs lie heavy upon them, where there are so few, though in a world well Peopled there are many that have plenty and ease, that the memory of [Page] the Antidiluvian persons, and things, must be almost utterly extinct, and that the Tradition concerning them must needs be very uncertain and obscure, and therefore it is no wonder to find Deucalion, that is indeed Noah, though Apollonius speaks of him as a Native of Thessaly, according to the usual vanity of the Greeks, who ascribed all these things to themselves, represented as the first person that built Cities and Altars, the first head of civil society and inventour of Political Administration, that is, he was the first that was so after the Floud, of which Period the Greeks had a more certain and particular knowledge than of that before it, though at other times we find some little sparks and strictures among them, even of the Antidiluvian interval likewise.
Further though Plato were mistaken as to the manner of the preservation of Mankind from the Floud, and though he is very uncertain as to the number of those universal Flouds that had hapened before his time, for one while he says acco [...]d [...]ng to Antient Tradition, according to the [...] De Leg. l. 3. init. [...]. that many such universal calamities had happened to mankind, by Deluges and Plagues, wherein a very [Page] small and inconsiderable remnant escaped to repair the loss, and propagate themselves to after Ages, another while he is very particular and precise in the business, and tells us Deucalions was the Fourth such universal Deluge that had happened, [...] In Critiâ p. 1102. [...] there being Three other fatal Deluges before that of Deucalion. And at others, he seems inclinable to believe that Mankind and the World had no beginning at all, so that these things might very well have happened though at a good distance from one another, yet a prodigious number of times, for so he speaks in the Person of an Athenian whom he introduces. [...] L. b. De Leg. p. 875. [...], that is, that it becomes every Man to know, that either Mankind had never any beginning nor shall have end, or at least that its Original is at so vast a distance, that it is impossible to trace it to its first beginning. Yet notwithstanding all this strange variety, there is in the midest of it still a constant acknowledgment of such a thing as an universal Deluge, and that not founded only upon Fancy or Opinion or Philosophical conjecture but [Page] upon the [...], upon Ancient Tradition, which if you compare with these Two things, First the improbability, if not utter impossibility of Plato's expedient to Salve and account for the reparation of Mankind and of all other Animals after such an universal Deluge; and Secondly, if you consider, that even in Plato himself there is no Historical certainty, no particular account of any universal Deluge, but that which happened in Deucalion's Unless it be that of Gyges mentioned out of him by Cicero, which I take to be the same with it. time, whom, I think, I have sufficiently proved to be the same with Noah, all this is no less than a manifest attestation to the truth of the Mosaic account, and the very Deviations from it, do but serve to confirm and strengthen it the more.
With Apollonius, Ovid, and Lucian, Homer also agrees in his Character of Deucalion, for he gives him the Epithet of [...] in Il. v. where Idomeneus addressing himself to Deiphobus, thus describes Deucalions Genealogy and his own,
Which place of Homer I have therefore cited thus largely, that I may take notice of the differing accounts which Homer and other Genealogists have given us of the pedigree of Deucalion, and that I may reconcile them together. Homer makes him to be the Son of Minos, but others of Prometheus, which Two, though the Names be different, are the same persons. Prometheus is, as I have already proved in the Heathen Mythology no other than God himself, or it is that partial consideration of the Divine Nature, which is taken from his Providence and Wisdom, whereby he foresees and orders all things, both in Heaven and Earth, and so is Minos; only the one of them is the Greek Name by which that Wisdome was signified, the other the Hebrew or Oriental, for Minos is from Min species, or from Manah numeravit, and thence also is the Greek [...], (for the Mother of the Muses) [...] for a certain Coin which in Latin is called Mina and the Latin Minerva for the Goddess of knowledge and Patroness of all the liberal and ingenious Arts, because all knowledge is a sort of remembrance a kind of Calculating or computation, a distinguishing of those things whose Natures are distinguisht, and a sorting those [Page] things and notions into the same classis, which have an agreement or resemblance with each other. From the same root is likewise the Greek [...], because all Numeration proceeds by Ʋnites, and [...], is not as the Grammarians usually expound it, [...], but it is [...], ira menstrua, or Lunatica, a Lunatic Madness and Phrenzy, from [...], Luna which See more of these derivatives in my discourse of the true time of our Saviours Passover. is from the Hebrew Manah numeravit, this being the Ancient way of measuring Time, by the motion of the Moon, and as from [...] is [...], so also from [...] or from [...] it self, is [...], and [...], signifying such a Madness as is Govern'd and influenced by certain Periods and seasons of the Moon.
For this reason, Because his Name includes Knowledge, Distinction and Judgment, Minos is made by the Poets the Judge of the infernal shades, that is, the great and just dispenser of Rewards and Punishments after this life; and Claudian, though ignorant of any Oriental Language, yet gives him his Character from the distinction which he makes betwixt the innocent and guilty, as if he had alluded to the Etymon which I have given from Min species or Manah numeravit., in the Second in Eutropium.
Neither is it at all repugnant to what hath been said, that he is made by the Poets, to be the Son of Jupiter, as Minerva is his Daughter, which does not hinder them from being Jupiter or the Supream Numen himself under that partial consideration which I have mentioned, for all the attributes may in some sense be said, to be the Sons and Daughters, that is, they are the constant, natural and inseparable effects, properties, and emanations of the Divine substance. Neither am I ignorant that the Scholiast upon Apollonius makes the Son of Minos and the Son of Prometheus to be Two different and distinct Persons from one another, where, upon the place lately produced out of that Poet, he tells us, there were Four several Persons that went by this Name of Deucalion, and I shall prove by and by that there were a great many more. [...] that is, there is also another Deucalion (besides the [Page] Son of Prometheus) of whom Hellanicus makes mention, and another the Son of Minos mentioned by Pherecydes, and a Fourth the Son of Abas of whom Aristippus speaks in his Arcadica. And Apollodorus also mentions these Two as distinct, as may appear by comparing l. 1. c. 7. and l. 3. c. 2. of his Bibliotheca together; but even according to this account, by which one of the Deucalions is made the Son of Minos, that Deucalion will have lived in the Age immediately preceding the Trojan War, for Idomeneus his Son was present at it, and if we consider, that that is the highest distance of time of which the Greeks afford us any tolerable account according to that of Lucretius,
If we consider that both of these lie at the very furthest end of the Greek Antiquity, though if they be the same with Noah, they must in reality have lived before this Period also, if we consider that the Names of Minos and Pometheus, as I have proved, have both of them exactly the same sense and signification, the one being only a Translation of the other, and if to all this we add [Page] the great confusion of the Greek Chronology in those Ancient times, from all this I leave it to the Judgment of Learned and Judicious Men, whether my conjecture do not yet stand upon a tolerable Foundation, and such as is at least as firm, as can be expected or hoped for in these matters.
But Secondly, The Second and Last remaining resemblance, which I shall mention betwixt Noah and Deucalion, is, that the Flouds which happened in their times are said to have been sent as a particular judgment for the sins and enormities of that Age, which suffered by them. This is plainly the Language of Moses himself, Gen. 6. v. 5, 6, 7. And God saw that the Wickedness of Man was great in the Earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his Heart was only evil continually, and it repented the Lord, that he had made Man on the Earth and it grieved him at his Heart, and the Lord said I will destroy Man whom I have Created, from the Face of the Earth, both Man and Beast, and the creeping thing and the Fowles of the Air: for it repenteth me that I have made them. And just thus Ovid describes the time immediately preceding Deucalions Floud, where Jupiter speaking of the Cruelty and Inhumanity of Lycaon and his Family and dependants, he [Page] does it after such a manner, as to involve the whole World more or less in the Guilt of those Crimes of which Lycaon was accused.
And a little after having spoken of the destruction of Lycaon and his House, he adds,
And then follows the story of Deucalion's Floud.
Apollodorus calls the Generation that was destroyed by the Floud [...], the Brazen Age implying their degeneracy from the purer times of Gold and Silver which were the Two first Periods, of human Life upon the Earth, the First of which was absolutely, and the Second comparatively innocent, with respect to [Page] the Brazen and Iron interval that followed after; the same Apollodorus in another place, though he seem to attribute that Apollod. Biblioth. l. 3. p. 187, 188, 189. ed Paris, 1675. judicial inundation to the Wickedness of that Age wherein it came to pass, and places it as Ovid does in Lycaons times, yet he rather blames the Sons of Lycaon than himself, and saith that it was in the Reign of Nyctimus the only Son of Fifty that was spared, in which this Deluge happened, and that it was their extream Wickedness and Inhumanity that was the Cause of it, and the Reign of this Nyctimas over the Arcadians, if we will believe him in another place, was contemporary with that of Cranaus the Son of Cecrops, over Athens, for so speaking of Cranaus he tells us, [...] p. 225. ib. [...]. in whose time it is said, the Floud of Deucalion happened.
Lucian also speaking of the manners of those Men who lived immediately before De Deâ Syr. p. 882. the Floud, says, [...], &c. that is, it is reported concerning those Men that lived in that Age when Deucalions Floud fell out, that they were a sort of Arbitrary Men, inured to [Page] all manner of violence and rapine, whose will was their Law and their only measure of Justice, that they neither kept Oaths nor were Hospitable to Strangers, nor merciful to the suppliant and the afflicted, for which things sake a great and dreadful calamity befel them, the Earth immediately gushed out with abundance of Water, &c.
Lastly, Suidas speaking of Cecrops the Suid. in [...]. Ancient Athenian King, who first introduced Marriage among them, whereas before there was nothing but promiscuous Lust, assignes this reason of that Law of Cecrops, [...] This was done by Cecrops being an Aegyptian, and being skilled in the Laws of Vulcan or Hephaestus one of the Kings of Aegypt, and being of Opinion that the Deluge with which Attica was overwhelmed, was inflicted by way of Judgment upon them, for the sake of that Promiscuous Lust of which they were guilty; which answers exactly to that which is spoken of the Antidiluvian Mortals, Gen. 6. 2. that the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men that they were fair, and they took them Wives of all which they chose. which words [Page] in the beginning of this Treatise I have explained of incestuous conjunctions, which also were practised in Attica before the time of Cecrops, if this story be true, and which, though in themselves they were very heinous, as being flattly repugnant to the great Law of Nature, which is the interest and welfare of Mankind, yet the Text tells us, at least according to our Translation, that they took them Wives, which implies a state of Marriage in opposition to promiscuous Lust, but yet this was not inconsistent, otherwise than de jure, either with Polygamy on the one hand, or with Fornication, Adultery, or Arbitrary divorce on the other.
If we Interpret Nashim by Wives, as our Interpreters do, and understand it so, as we do usually that English word, then all those inserences hold good which I have made from the place, but if we expound it of Women in general, as the Word will very well bear that Interpretation, and indeed this is the most proper and familiar notion of it, then this Answers exactly to this place of Suidas and shews without dispute, that one of those sinsfor which Noahs Floud was brought upon the World, was the use of a wandring and promiscuous Lust, without distinction of property on the one hand, [Page] or of affinity or consanguinity on the other. Only thus much must be confessed, that the Floud to which Suidas in this place refers was not that of Deucalion but Ogyges, the latter of which, or rather the first in order of time, the Greek Writers are generally used to confine to the Province of Attica, and the other to that of Thessaly, but I have affirmed both of these to be the same, and if the reasons I have given for it may be allowed, this place of Suidas will belong to Deucalion, as well as any of the other that have been produced, though Suidas meant it only of Ogyges as distinct from him, and to show once for all how very uncertain the Greeks are as to the time wherein Ogyges lived. There is a place in Eusebius which from the Authority of Philochorus affirms all the pretended successors of Ogyges in the domimion of Attica to have been meer figments and impostures of Antiquity, and that no such real Persons were ever in being. [...] Euseb. praep. Evarg. l. 10. [...] that is, neither Actaeus nor any other of those feigned Persons who are pretended to have been successors to Ogygus, had ever yet so much as a being in nature, if we will believe Philochorus; now it is very strange they should be so clear, or may be so safely [Page] rely'd upon as to the Age of Ogyges and yet be so much in the dark, as to his immediate successor and those that afterwards succeeded him, who came proportionably nearer and nearer to the time of their Historians themselves; besides, that the only reason why the more Modern of the Greek Historians, since Christianity was introduced, have placed Ogyges in the time of Moses, is to be taken from the mention of Agag in the Prophecy of Balaam, as I have already conjectured, is undenyably plain from this, that Eusebius does not only speak of him as contemporary with Moses, but places him exactly in that part of it, when Moses was upon his journey out of Aegypt, which does so accurately and so patly suit with the mention of Agag in the Prophecy of Balaam, which was uttered at that very time, that nothing can do more. And this is a new confirmation that the Floud of Noah and Ogyges were the same, being brought upon the World for the very same cause and reason and not only so, but this is also a new and clear indication, that this Floud being confined by the Greeks to the Province of Attica, we are to understand by this, as I have said, no more but that it happened among the Hathikim, the Ancient Inhabitants and People of the World, from whence [Page] also the Attici had their name, as being a Colony from the East of great Antiquity in Greece. And for a further proof of the solidity of this conceit, I will here produce another Instance or two by which it shall be plainly confirmed. Justin the Epitomator of Trogus saith of the Athenians, Soli enim Athenienses praeterquam incremento, etiam origine gloriantur: quippe non advenae neque passim collecta populi colluvies originem urbi debit, sed in eodem nati solo quod incolunt, & quae illis sedes, eadem origo est. that is, that they were not like other Nations, Strangers, and Colonies from another Country, but that their first Ancestours were born of the Earth, and sprung up in that Country where they and their Posterity have ever since dwelt: and the very same thing is assirmed of them by Plato, where speaking of Attica. he uses these words, [...] In mene [...] eno. p. 518. [...]. that is, another just commendation of Attica is this, that at that time when all the rest of the Earth brought forth all manner of living Creatures, as well Wild Beasts, as Tame, or [Page] Beasts of pasture, then Attica Barren of any such productions, chose Man out of all the Creatures to be her offspring, a Creature far more Noble and Excellent than any of the rest, and to whom Justice and Religion do peculiarly belong. Not that in reality the Province of Attica did ever yield such a Crop as Plato and Justin and others have recorded, but that this was the first Original of Mankind, the Hathikin, the first and most Ancient Mortals were born after this manner. For this was the Greek Tradition concerning the first Mortals, that they were born out of the Earth, as appears by another passage of the same Plato; where Socrates speaking of those early times thus enquires of the [...] or stranger another person in the Dialogue concerning them. [...]; that is, what sort of Generation was there Plat. in Politic. p. 537. then, O Stranger, of Animals, and after what manner were they produced from one another, to which he returns this Answer, [...] [Page] [...], that is, it is manifest, O Socrates, that in that state of things, Animals were not born by generation of one another. That brood of Creatures, which we have just now affirmed to have sprung out of the Earth, returning to the Earth again from whence it came, sprung up anew from thence again, as it hath been delivered down by Tradition to us from our Eldest Ancestours, who bordered upon that primitive state, and were the first Inhabitants of this, and we believe these things upon the credit of their testimony, though there be some so rash now a days, as to reject them for Fabulous and Romantick. What that primitive state or revolution of things, which he speaks of, is I shall explain more largely by and by, but now I go on to observe that this Tradition, which the Greeks had of Men at First being produced from the Earth, though it were miserably Corrupted and Adulterated, as appears by this that they confined it only to Attica, and that one whole Age or Revolution or Period of time was spent in this sort of aequivocal production, without any proper or univocal Generation all this while, yet that in its [Page] Original it was an Eastern Tradition, and consequently that by the Attici we are not to understand the People of that particular province among the Greeks, but in general the Hathikin, that is, the Ancient and first Mortals, though this was more than the latter Greeks themselves understood I will now prove from another passage of the same Plato; where speaking in a Fabulous manner, for he himself calls it a Fable, though there were more truth in it then he was aware of, he says, First concerning the production of all other Animals besides Man. [...] Protag. p. 223, 224., that is, there was a time when the Gods were, but none of the mortal Species were yet produced into being, but when the fatal or predetermin'd time came that they also should be produced, then the Gods formed them within the Earth, by mingling Earth and Fire together, and whatsoever else is capable of a vital union with those Two, and having spoken after this manner of the Creation and Production of all other Animals, he speaks of that of Man last of all, as the Scripture does, which showes undenyably [Page] from whence this Tradition among the Greeks was derived, [...] ib. p. 224. [...] at length the fatal or praeappointed time was come, wherein Man also from the Earth was to be brought to light. to all which it is to be added that in his Critias he describes the primitive state of innocency before the Fall, just after such a manner, as if he had received it, not from Moses himself, but at some distance, from others that had, for it is not delivered without something of corruption, though these Three things are still very plain in his account, First, That Man was made after the Image of God, as the Scripture expression is, and Secondly, That the meaning of this Image was a kind of participation of the Divine Nature, partly by all the inward habits and outward effects of Righteousness and true Holyness, as the Apostle hath explained it, and partly by a marvellous rectitude of understanding as well as will. His words are these, describing that state of primitive simplicity in the persons of his Athenians, that is again the Hathikin, the Ancient and first Mortals, [...] Plat. in Critiâ. p. 1108. [...] [Page] [...], &c. that is, for many Generations, so long as the nature or life of God continued powerful and prevalent among them, they were Obedient to Laws, and had an affectionate and warm sense of the Divinity to which they were nighly related. Their sentiments were true and generous, they conversed with one another, and they encountered all the diversities of Fortune, with meekness and humility, and with a wise and steady temper, they despised every thing besides (or in comparison of) virtue, and had a very little esteem for present things, they looked upon Gold and Silver and other possessions under the notion of a burthen, they used a very sparing and temperate Diet, and were not subject to be deceived and blinded by the Fumes of Wine. In another place as the Scripture saith of our First Parents, Gen. 2. 25. that they were both naked, the Man and his Wife and [Page] were not ashamed. So Plato saith also of the First Mortals, [...] Politic. p. 537. [...], that is, for the most part they were naked and without any covering, exposed to the open Air, and living sub Dio. And Lastly in another place, he saith they abstained from all manner of Flesh, as the Scripture intimates the First Mortals till after the Floud to have done, [...] L. 6. de Leg. p. 875. [...] Leg. Fortè [...]. [...] Mallem, [...]. & statim, [...] [...]. [...]. that is, it is familiar even to this day in some places for Men to Sacrifice one another; but formerly we have heard they were so far from it, that we of Athens particularly (for it is an Athenian that speaks) did not hold it Lawful so much as to tast of the Flesh of an Ox, and our Sacrifices to the Gods were not made with Animals, but Cakes and Fruits sprinkled with Honey, and other such like pure oblations, but those first Mortals abstained wholly from Flesh, as thinking it a [Page] sin to eat it, or to defile the Altars of the Gods with Blood: they lived a sort of Orphick lives, as they are called, enjoying and feeding upon all things whatsoever they pleased, that were void of Life, and abstaining Religiously from every animated or living substance.
Where, when he attributes this peculiarly to the Ancient Athenians, this is again to be understood of the Hathikin, that is the Ancient or Antidiluvian Mortals, and when he calls this sort of diet, the Orphick life, it is to be noted that Giants in Scripture such as the Antidiluvian Mortals, who abstained from Flesh, are generally reckoned to have been, are called Rephaim, to which it is but adding an Aleph at the beginning, and we have all but the Greek termination of Orpheus, and this Aleph is indifferently either added or substracted in very many words, as Ram and Aram are the same, and so Hesychius interprets, [...], which is the signification of Ram in Hebrew, and Armenia was so called, not only from Aram its first supposed planter, but also with respect to its high situation, and to the Mountains of Ararat or the Gordiaean and other Mountains to be met with in it, so also Shur and Ashur are the same, as hath been already declared, and Dam which signifies [Page] Blood, is but a contraction of Adam, which hath the signification of Red and So also from the Hebrew Arbah signifying Four, is the adjective Rebihi and other words by the ejection of the Aleph. from the Hebrew Mar by the addition of the same Aleph, the Latins have made their Adjective Amarus, and the Derivatives from it, so that according to this Etymology the Orphick Diet, will be the Diet of the Rephaim, or Antidiluvian Mortals, which was altogether upon vegetables without the use of Flesh, which does not appear to have been permitted in Food, till after the Floud was over or otherwise it is literally true, at least the Poets have told us so, that the Ancient and so much celebrated Orpheus did abstain from Flesh himself, and exhorted all his Followers and Disciples to do the same, according to that of Horace,
But then if it be asked who this Orpheus was? this is an hard Question, which hath very often baffled the Endeavours of Learned Men, Gerhard Vossius after Tully, who cites Aristotle for his Author is of [Page] opinion that there never was any such determinate person G. Voss. de orig. & progr. Idololat. l. 3. c. 44. & de art. poet. nat. & constit. p. 78, 79. who was called by this Name, and he saith further that it is only the general Name of a wise or sage and skillful Person in the Language of the Phoenicians, because Arifa in Arabick signifies to know, and Arif a Man of knowledg and learning, and Tatianus saith Exresly that the Ancient Verses v. loc. Tatiani apud Voss. p. 78. ubi supra. which went under his Name, were not really his, no more then the Golden ones of Pythagoras are thought to be, but that they were compiled and put together by Onomacritus the Athenian, and nothing is more certain than that the Argonauticks, which at this day go under his Name, however very Ancient, are yet notwithstanding, [...], counterfeit and surreptitious things, whose true Authors Name is unknown. I agree perfectly with Vossius as to the Etymology, and I had that which was Equivalent to it in my mind, before I met with his conjecture, and besides I am certain that I have light upon the true Mystery of this Ancient Orpheus, which is this;
The Arabick Arifa by the addition of an Aleph, is from the Hebrew Rapha Sanavit, so that, it signifies most properly a [Page] Man skillful in Herbs, or in the practice of Physick, or a good Physician or an Healing or Sanative Person: and so this Orpheus is the same with Apollo, who is Herbarum pater & Deus, and is withal the God of Knowledg and Wisdom, the Sun, as hath been said, being looked upon by all the Pagan World as the Supream Numen, and skill in Herbs or the knowledge of Nature, being in good earnest an argument of the greatest and truest Wisdom, and he was made by Antiquity to preside over Herbs, because the vegetable World is ripened and concocted by his Beams, and all the several Species are fitted for that use, to which they are appointed and ordained by Nature; therefore Orpheus as well as Apollo was made by Macrob. l. 1. c. 19. Lyra Apollinis chordarum septem, tot caelestium sphaerarum motus praestat intelligi, quibus solem moderatorem natura constituit. Antiquity to preside over Musick, as well as Medicine, because of the regularity of the Suns motion, the constant returns of Day and Night and of the seasons of the Year, and because all things are so tempered and poised by his influence, that Nature goes on in a constant and steady course, keeping a perpetual harmony and agreement with her self in the preservation of the several Species, and for that Fable of Orpheus that he drew Stones and [Page] Trees after him by the Charms of his Musick, this is partly that they are generated by his influence, and that they flourish and prosper under it, and partly that Cities are built, and all the great Monuments of Art and Industry are reared by his light, so that in this sense also he may be said to draw Stones and Trees after him for the Building of Cities, because when he is once set, the Work of the day ceases together with him, as also to make To this purpose it is very apposite what Macrobius saith, l. 1. c. 17. [...] cognominaverunt (Antiqui) non ex officio pastorali & Fabulâ, per quam fingitur Admeti regis Pecora pavisse, sed quia sol pascit omnia quae terra progene rat, unde non unius geueris sed omnium pecorum pastor canitur, &c. Bears and Tygers and Wolves and other the most fierce Animals to dance after him, because all the Animal World does, as it were, bask it self in his kindly heat, and does rejoyce and is glad in his Beams, whereas in the night they either sleep or howle and are disturbed with a melancholy sense of the absence of their Friend and Benefactor, and to show this yet the more plainly, the very same things are attributed to Amphion, for Orpheus and Amphion are the same, but you will say how comes the Sun to be called Amphion? to which the Answer is easie, it is not as the Grammarians triflingly suppose, [...], but yet it [Page] is true that Amphion is a Greek name of the Sun, as Orpheus is an Hebrew or Oriental, and his name is plainly [...], he that So also he is called [...] by the Poets as well Latin as Greek, [...]. goes about, or fetches a perpetual Circuit as the Sun seems to do, and was believed to do according to the most Antient Astronomical Doctrine, and the contraction of the two short Vowels into one, is the true reason that the penultima of this word is long in all the Poets, so that here is all the Analogy that can be required.
According to this Etymology, which is without question the true one, the Orphick life, is the dyet upon Herbs, because though all things are warmed and cherished by the Sun, and all things are nourished and sustained by his Beams; yet in a more Apollo is said more particularly to preside over Herbs, because they lie more open to his view, not Cloystered up in Dens or Caves or Houses, or shaded and concealed from his piercing Beams by the shelter of Woods, and because the Animal World, though it could not endure his total extinction yet it does more easily brook his absence, than the Fields and Flowers can do, which are in a manner dead all the Winter, and depend wholly upon his warmth and influence for their appearance above Ground. particular manner he was by Antiquity supposed to preside over Herbs, or the Orphick life is the most Ancient and Primitive way of Feeding, which comes to the same thing, because of the great Antiquity of the Fable of Orpheus, which was so very great that the Greeks themselves were strangers to its meaning, as I think hath been abundantly manifested, from what hath been said concerning him and Amphion.
But though the Greeks did not understand that Orpheus and the Sun were the same, yet from the Fabulous account which they give of his Birth, it is plain they had once such a Tradition though afterwards they lost it, Apollonius the Writer of the Argonauticks puts him down first in the Catalogue of those Ancient Heroes that were so famous in the Graecian Story for that expedition, and makes him to have been the Son of Oeagrus and Calliope, l. 1. v. 23, 24, 25.
Now this Oeagrus and the Sun are the same, for as [...], or rather, as it should be written, [...], is from [...] hasta, and [...], which is as much as [...], as [...], and [...], and [...] are the same, as much as to say, venator hastatus, so is Oeagrus, from [...] solus, with the Addition of the same Word and Signification, as much as to say venator solitarius, as Hunting is ascribed to Apollo, [Page] as much as Wisdom, or Medecine, or Poetry, or Musick, Macrob. l. 1. c. 17. Sagittarum autem nomine, non nisi radiorum Jactus ostenditur; qui tun [...] longissimi intelliguntur, quo tempore altissimus sol diebus longissimis solstitio aestivo conficit annuum cursum, inde [...] dictus, [...], è longissimo altissimoque radios in terram usque demittens. because of the swiftness of his Course, and because his Rayes are as so many Darts or Javelins by which he shoots from Heaven to the Earth, and therefore in the Greek Poets he hath the Epithets of [...], and [...], and [...], and [...], and he is said to Hunt alone because all the Stars are extinguisht by his Presence, and nothing does or can appear but himself: so that there was no real difference, though Pherecydes, in the Scholiast upon the place of Apollonius last cited, thought there was, betwixt Oeagrus and Apollo, [...], Pherecydes saith that, Orpheus according to Asclepiades was the Son of Apollo and Calliope, but according to others of Oeagrus and Polymnia, for this Oeagrus and Apollo are the same, and that he is said to be the Son of Apollo, though indeed he were the very same person with him, it is in no other sense, then that the Attributes, as I have said already, may not improperly be called the Sons or [Page] Daughters of the Divine Substance, and Medecine is but one of those perfections for which Apollo was Celebrated by the Ancient Poets, [...], the Greek Termination [...] very frequently denoting a person, being as much as And by this name the vestal Virgins of old were used to invoke him. Apollo Medice, Apollo P [...]an. Macrob. l. 1. c. 17. ib. paulò suprà hinc est quod eidem attribuitur medendi potestas: quia temperatus solis calor morb [...]rum omnium fuga est.— Medicus or Sanator: neither are we to wonder at all that Orpheus is placed so low by the Writer of the Argonauticks, as the expedition which he Celebrates in his Poem, for it is a vanity to think that all his Heroes were contemporary, but he amarsses together all the great names of Antiquity, of which Orpheus was the chief, to make his Catalogues the more august and splended, and to adorne the drapery of his Poem; for it is a great mistake to think that the Ancient Poets were any exact observers of Chronology, but they frequently not only out of mistake, but de signe, to grace and embellish their performance, brought the greatest Names together out of all quarters and times, without any regard to truth, which is not the virtue of a Poet, and this was the true reason why their Historians were in many things guilty of such gross and palpable impostures, because they took their measures [Page] from the Poets, as if Poetry and truth, that is, any other than a truth of Nature, a truth of Emblem or Hierogliphick meaning, a truth and justice or natural probability of Action, a truth of order and decency and proper circumstance, had any relation or affinity together.
It is the more suspicious concerning Orpheus, that Apollonius was guilty of a designed error, if we may call that an error or mistake which a Man does knowingly commit, because he places him the very first, as indeed he was the first and greatest Heroe in Antiquity, and Celebrated under divers Names by all the Ancient Poets, Philosophers and Priests; and it is not very remote from this business, what Vossius observes concerning the crowding the Histories of divers Persons into the Character of one; to make him appear the more Honourable and renowned, Veterum mos erat, quo G. Voss. de orig. & progr. Idololat. l. 1. c. 19. magis ad mirandae essent virtutes eorum, quos in Deos retulissent, varios eximiae virtut is in unum conflare, unique omnium gesta attribuere, quod difficile non erat in rebus ab aetate suâ remotis, & gest is in terris longè dissitis.
To all that it is to be added, that Linus also, another pretended Poet of the remotest Antiquity, is by Apollodorus said to have been the Son of the Oeager or Oeagrus, [Page] though he tells us in the same place, notwithstanding he was really the Son of Oeagrus, yet he was reputed the Son of Apollo, and passed for such by common fame, his words are, [...], Biblioth. l. 1. c. 3. So the Scholiast upon Homer ad Il. Z. 155. says of Belle prophon, that he was [...], by nature and in truth the Son of Neptune, but by common fame of Glauens, and other instances there are very obvious to be met with. for this is the meaning of [...], that he was the Son of Apollo by common fame, notwithstanding that he was really the Son of Oeager, not as the Translator hath very unskilfully rendred it, qui & patrem habuisse Apollinem dicitur, but the whole place ought to have been rendred thus, Calliopes & Oeagri filius reâpse Linus fuit, quem vulgi tamen rumor perhibet Apoll [...]ne prognatum, and this is also to be applied [...] to Orpheus himself, of whom it is immediately said, [...], that he also was the real Son of Oeager, though the pretended of Apollo, but Apollodorus is out, as well as his Translator, for Orpheus and Linus are the same with one another, and the same with Oeager and Apollo themselves, between whom there is no difference at all, and Virgil no contemptible Author in these matters, makes Linus to [Page] have been really the Son of Apollo, at v. de Pirithoo schol. ad odyss. [...]. 304. least as much as Calliope was Orpheus his Mother, and they say the Mother's is the surer side.
Vossius gives it as his Judgment, that there De art. Poet. nat. & const. p. 78. was no such Person as the Ancient Linus nor Musaeus neither, no more than there was a certain and determinate Orpbeus, and he makes the signification of Linus to be only general, signifying a Writer of Mournful or Elegiack Verses, because Telounah in Hebrew signifies Murmuring and as he says Lamentation, though of this latter signification I doubt it would have puzled him to produce an instance, but in the truth of the thing Linus, who according to the Mythologers and the Poets, was the Son of Oeagrus or Apollo and Calliope, is in reality no other than Apollo or the Sun himself, and he hath his name from his brightness, which is the signification of Linus or Lunus, as Hesychius Interprets [Page] it, [...], and thence the Latin v. Aegid. Menag. in D. La [...]rt. Luna is derived, as Learned Men have already observed, for these Vowells are easily and familiarly changed into one another, as from the Common Greek [...], or as the Greeks themselves would pronounce it, [...], is the Jonique [...], and from the oblique case [...] is the Latin unus, and our very English word Sun, hath its name and So from the Latin Lux or Luceo is the English Lict or Light, and from the Greek [...] or the Latin Nox Noctis is the English Night. signification from Shining, and yet might he well be called the Son of Apollo, though he were indeed no other than Apollo or the Sun himself, because Light is an attribute or perfection of the Sun, and the Sun is justly called the Father of Light.
Further yet; Orpheus is sometimes said to be the Son of Calliope, as others of Polymnia, of Calliope, because being the Father and President of Musick, as the Sun was thought by the Ancients for the reasons already declared, the congruity of the Fable did require, that he should be descended from a mother carrying Harmony in her Name, and because the Ancients usually Sung to the Ha [...]p, which was the instrument of Orpheus, adding instrumental Musick to Vocal, to this when it is well performed is said to be done [...] in the Language of Homer, where speaking of the Feast of the Gods he says.
And as he was said to be the Son of Calliope with respect to the harmony and sweetness of his Musick, so of Polymnia too with respect to the subject matter of his Poetical Song, (for Apollo was the Patron of Poetry as well as Musick) which is supposed to be a lofty and magnificent commemoration of gallant Persons and Deeds, the proper subject of an Epick or Heroick Poet, so that Calliope and Polymnia are indeed the same, and so are all the Muses, the Daughters of Polymnia or Poesie in the general, expressing only the different accomplishments of a complete and universal Poet, though perhaps Herodotus when he called the Books of his History by their names might look upon them as real persons distinguisht from each other.
And as Orpheus was the same with Apollo or the Sun, so was Eurydice his supposed Wife, no other than the Moon, whom Orpheus is said to have followed to the Shades below, and to have obtained leave of Pluto for her return from thence; though for a [Page] Fabulous reason, which the Poets give us, she was afterwards remanded, by which nothing else is meant but the perpetual course of rising and setting of those Two Heavenly Bodies, and their seemingly perpetual pursuit of one another, which is yet further confirmed by the Disease of which Eurydice is said to have Dyed, that is, by the bite of a Serpent, which is nothing else but the Moons Diurnal motion, the Serpent in the East being an The Serpent of Epidaurus under which form Apollo or Aesculapius (for these are both the same) was Worshipped both in Peloponesus and Rome was but an Eastern Hieroglyphick of time, which is measured principally by the Suns motion. Macrob. v. l. 1. c. 20. initio. Emblem of time, and every entire revolution of any Heavenly Body, being compared to a Serpent biting it self by the Tayl, because every Circle ends where it begins, and as soon as the Arch which is described by it, returns to the same point from whence it set out, the circumference is complete, and one entire revolution is at an end. She is called Eurydice as much as to say latè jura dans, because the Moon hath the Government of the Night, and this Government in Scripture is called Memlecheth, her Kingdom or Dominion, Gen. 1. 16. and for the same reason the Sun is called [...], in a citation that shall be hereafter produced, because the Care and Government of the Day is committed to him.
Having said thus much upon occasion of the last mentioned place of Plato, where he speaks of the [...] the Orphick or Orphaick life, which I have shown to have consisted in abstinence from Flesh, I cannot but observe one thing more in it, which to me seems to have been a great mistake and a manifest corruption of the primitive Tradition, and that is, that he makes their Sacrifices as well as their Diet to have consisted only in incruentis, and that they thought it a very great offence [...], to defile the Altars of the Gods with Bloud, for besides what hath been said already in Answer to Grotius his conceit concerning the Sacrifice of Abel, it is to be considered, that there were Two main reasons of all Sacrifice, the First was Thanksgiving for the Goods and Comforts of Life, of which a part was to be offered up by way of humble Acknowledgment to the Author of them, and these indeed were for the most part dona incruenta, so long as Mankind continued to abstain from Flesh, these were for the most part, though the Sacrifice of Abel himself was not so, [...], as Plato calls them, chast and pure Oblations, [...], Cakes and Fruits besprinkled with Honey, which belonged [Page] manifestly to the Genus Eucharisticum, and were offered up by way of Thanksgiving, or in way of faederal Communication, with a reconciled and propitiated Numen. But there was also the [...] or expiatorium, there were Sacrifices offered by way of expiation or Attonement, which were always without Question Bloudy Sacrifices or Sacrifices of Animals slain before the Altar or upon it, whose Bloud was shed by way of commutation, instead of that of the Offender himself, which, though I do not say, is depended upon a Law of Nature, for then it could never have been dispensed with, yet nothing is more certain than that it was the general practice of the World, before the delivery of the Law of Moses, and a Custom whose beginning cannot be assigned any otherwise than by saying, that it seems most probable to have began immediately after the Fall, and to have been as old as Sin it self, which gave the first rise and occasion to it. Upon the whole matter I leave it to be considered, whether the reasons I have given, as well in this place, as in what hath been said above upon another occasion, are not sufficient to weigh against the Authority of Porphyrie and Plato, and those who esteeming such Authority more sacred than that [Page] of the Scripture it self, have strained the one so miserably to make it comply with the other.
To confirm which yet further, it is to be considered, what is reported of Pythagoras, by those that have wrote concerning him, that having found out the demonstration of that proposition in Euclid, that in a reclangular Triangle, the square of the Subtender is equal to the square of the two other sides, he is said by way of Thankfulness for so important a discovery, as he esteemed it, to have offered up an Hecatomb to the Gods, notwithstanding that he and his Disciples abstained from all manner of Flesh in their Food, and this, if admitted for truth, as I think it was never yet called in Question, is a plain instance of the use of Animals in Sacrifice, among those very People who did Religiously abstain from them in their Food, for as for those who would have this passage in the Life of that Phylosopher, to be so understood, as if it were an Hecatomb of Meal or fine Flower molded into the shape of so many Animals as the Hecatomb consisted of, which the Greek Grammarians tell us were Twenty five in Number, and that where there were not [...], there was no Hecatomb, properly so called, they are to be heard, First because the Imitation [Page] of Animals in Flower and Past, would not in reason be acceptable in Sacrifice, so long as the Animals themselves were prohibited to be put to any such use, for all imitation in Religious Worship, does certainly suppose the thing so imitated to be at leastwise Lawful, otherwise it is rather to be interpreted as an affront, than an acceptable service, or a proper Act of Worship and Adoration. Secondly, I challenge any Man to show me one instance besides the thing in Question, which is but to begg instead of proving, where the word [...] in any Greek writer, is used for any inanimate oblation, But yet after v. D. Galaeam in not. ad Apollod. p. 85. v. etiam & Meurs. de Reg. Athen. l. 1. & Scal. ad Euseb. Chron. l. 1. [...]. 26. all, I acknowledge that in the account which the Antients give of Cecrops, who is by them supposed to have been the first King of Athens, one thing which they say of him is, that he forbad all Animal Sacrifices whatsoever, and I do not wholly deny, which it would be absurd for me to do, unless by a particular induction of all Ages and Nations I could prove my assertion, that there was never any Nation or People among whom the cruenta Sacrificia were unlawful, only I say, that, generally speaking, they were in use before the Floud, and that it is most reasonable to believe they were as Old at least as the Sacrifice [Page] of Abel, for of Adam we do not read that he ever offered up any Sacrifice at all, and if we speak of Adam in his first and Innocent estate, it is very true of him that he did not Sacrifice by way of expiation, because there was no need, there being no such thing as Sin yet stirring in the World, and explatory Sacrifices were, as I conceive, the only Animal Sacrifices in use before the Floud; so that if Cecrops and Adam were the same persons, as I do verily believe them to have been, then it is no wonder to find it recorded by the Ancients in the account which they give of him, that he forbad the use of Animals in Sacrifice, which Tradition of theirs arose only from hence, that in the state of Innocence such sort of Sacrifices did not yet obtain.
Now that Cecrops and Adam were the same, I can make it very probable from several considerations, First as to the Etymology of his Name, I make account that as [...] is from [...], so is [...] from [...] with the addition of [...] by a very ordinary and usuall way of reduplication in the Greek Tongue, as in our Lexicons may be seen; where we have [...] a verb from [...] or [...], and [...] for [...], and [...] for [...], [Page] and [...] and [...], for [...] and [...]. And so the signification of [...] will be as much as [...] or [...], the And Cecropia is the hidden Land, or the Land of Paradise, whose situation is not known.— hidden, that is, the Ancient King of Athens, or he, in the Language of Seneca, cujus origo ultrà memoriam jacet. Secondly, He is called the First King of Athens, that is, as I interpret it, according to what hath been frequently inculcated already, the first King among the Ancients, or the first King in Antiquity, which is as agreeable to Adam, as can be imagin'd, he being the first Father and Monarch of Mankind. Thirdly, Though by some of the Greek Writers he be represented as an Athenian, yet by the Scholiast upon Aristophanes, by Cedrenus, and Eusebius, by Suidas, by John and Isaac Tzetzes, and among the Latins by Papinius Statius he is represented v. Lloyd. lex. Geogr. p. 256, 257. & Jo. Scal. in Euseb. Chron. p. 26. as an Aegyptian, that is, an Easterling, For of this extent is the sense of the word [...] and [...] in many of the Greek Writers, who, for want of particular knowledge in the East, are by no means accurate in their relations concerning it. Fourthly, He is represented as living before Deucalion, that is, as I interpret it, before Noah, so Justin saith of the Athenians, Antè Deucalionis tempora Justin. l. 2. regem habuere Cecropem. And Apollodorus [Page] reckons the Floud of Deucalion to have Apollod. Biblioth. l. 3. p. 225. happened in the time of Cranaus who was the second from Cecrops, so that there is as much agreement between these things as can be expected in so great confusion of the Graecian account of time, for in strictness of Chronology, according to the account of Moses which is the only true one, Adam was Ten Generations before Noah.
And this account of Apollodorus placing Deucalion in the next Generation to Cecrops, is the least to be regarded, because the profane Writers themselves do not all of them concur with him, for Justin makes the Floud to have happened in the time of Amphitryon, whom Apollodorus calls [...], who was the Successor of Cranaus and the Third from Cecrops, his words are these in the place last cited out of him, huic (Cecropi) successit Cranaus, cujus filia Athis regioni nomen dedit, post hunc Amphitryon regnavit, qui primus Minerte urbem sacravit, & nomen civitati Athenas dedit. hujus temporibus aquarum illuvies majorem partem Graeciae absumpsit, superfuere quos refugia montjum receperunt, aut ad Regem Thessaliae Deucalionem ratibus vecti sunt, à quo proptereà genus humanum conditum dicitur. Fifthly, This Cecrops by the Generality of Greek Authors is called [...], by Ovid, [Page] Geminus and by Justin, biformis, of which there are Two reasons assigned, First that upwards he had the shape of a Man, but downwards of a Serpent, and in this sense the And so they are also called by the Schol. upon H [...]mer. ad [...]dyss. [...]. 304. Centaurs are somewhere called [...] by Apollodorus, though at present I cannot bring the place to my remembrance, which some do so interpret, as if this Cecrops at first had been a good and Gracious Prince, but afterwards degenerated into a Tyrant, but Plutarch. de Ser. num. vindict. Plutarch for I know not what reason, will have the clean contrary of this to have been represented by it; Demosth. in Orat. fun. Demosthenes will have it refer to the Gigantick stature of those first Mortals, and to be as much as if the Ancients had told us more plainly, that he had the knowledge or wisdom of a Man, added to the strength and power of some pernicious Dragon, or destructive Serpent. But I am very much mistaken, or nothing of all this is a true account of the matter, but if we would explain it, as it ought to be explained we must seek for its meaning in the Sacred story.
The true account of ancient this Story is this, Cecrops was the first Man, and his being made up, after a Monstrous manner, as the Fabulous antiquity hath represented him, of the parts of a Man and a Serpent [Page] or Dragon put together, was to signifie the Two Natures in Man, the one of which is the rational or intellectual, the other the animal, serpentine or sensual, exposed to Lusts and Passions and Temptations, which are therefore compared to a Serpent, because of their winding and insinuating-Nature; or else the Man and the Serpent, are to signifie the Two several states and conditions of Life in which our First Parent was successively engaged. The First is the State of Innocence and simplicity, the purely humane and intellectual State, undefiled and uncorrupted by any Indiscretion, Lust, or Passion, being at a perfect Friendship with, and having a perfect Dominion and Mastery of it self, and injoying a free and happy intercourse with that self-originated Mind and Will, which comprehends within it self the whole Extent and Latitude of truth, and is the Eternal and Immutable Standard, of all kind of Moral rectitude and virtue. The Second, or the Serpentine Estate, is the State of Degeneracy from that happy condition, by the Temptations of the Serpent, that is, by the suggestions of the lower Life, which did more easily insinuate themselves by the Ministry of a Woman, whom the Devil made use of [Page] upon this occasion, as being by reason of the weakness of her Sex, the fittest to be first Tampered with and wrought upon her self, and afterwards the fittest Instrument to convey the Poyson of her own delusions into the mind of her Husband, and these, whether suggestions of the lower and sensual Life in our selves, or temptations of the Devil from without, are represented, as I have said, in the Ancient Story, which I take it for granted in the Scripture it self, is partly Hieroglyphical, under the type and shadow of a Serpent, because of their winding and insinuating Nature.—
And both of these Interpretations agree excellently well, with that particular description which the Ancients have left us of their Cecrops, in whom they place the Humane Nature uppermost, and the Serpentine beneath, for in the First of my Interpretations the Humane or Intellectual Life or Nature, is uppermost not only in dignity but in place too, with respect to the sensual or concupiscible, which keeps its residence and performs its operations below, besides that the rational Nature was intended to be the guide and counsellor of the other, and is therefore by the Greeks called [...], to keep it [Page] within its due bounds and measures: and in the other Interpretation, there is as exact an agreement of the Fable to the truth, as in this, for the State of Innocency was in order of time, before that of degeneracy and declension from it. And thus Cecrops is described by Nonnus, Dionys. l. 41.
And by Aristophanes in Vespis.
Where the Scholiast thus Glosses upon the place, [...], that is, the Ancients say that Cecrops had Two Natures, his lower parts being made after the fashion of a Serpent.
The Second reason assigned by Authors of this Name of Cecrops, [...], is that he was the first that instituted Matrimony or conjugal Obligation between Man and Wife, Athenaeus, Deipnos. l. 13. [Page] [...], Justin l. 2. part of which words have been already produced, Ante Deucalionis tempora (Athenienses Regem habuere Cecropem, quem, ut omnis Fabulosa est Antiquitas biformém prodidere, quia primus marem Faeminae matrimonio junxit. Syrianus in Hermogenem: v. etiam Eastath. ad Il. [...] & w. & Isaac Tyesty. in in Lycophr. p. 24. [...]. Nonnus ubi supra.
Than all which testimonies I think there neither is, nor can be any thing more suitable to the case of our First Parent in the sacred Story, who was without all question the very first by whom the Matrimonial band was tyed, only whereas in the Citation of Athenaeus, it is set forth that before the time of Cecrops, Copulation was promiscuous and the use of Women common, which implies as if there had been several Generations before him, so that at this rate he could not be the first Man. This is no more then Suidas also [Page] saith concerning him, [...] Suid in [...]. [...]—that is, at that time (in the time of the Judges, when he makes Prometheus to have lived) Cecrops sirnamed [...] Reigned in Athens, he was so called according to some, because of the bulk and bigness of his Body, or rather as others would have it, because of a Law which he Enacted, that Women, being yet virgins, should be disposed of to one Man only, and for this reason he called them [...], or sponsae (quod essent uni viro [...] sive desponsatae) whereas before, Copulation was brutal and every Woman was common to all without distinction, being no Mans Wife, but prostituting her Chastity to every one as it happened, so that no one could tell whose Child it was that was at any time Born——and a little after he gives the reason why Ceorops made this Law, in words that have been already produced [...] [Page] [...]. This Cecrops d [...] as being by Birth an Aegyptian, and being acquainted with the Laws of Hephaestus or Vulcan, an Aegyptian King, and he said moreover that it was for this promiscuous and brutal use of Venery, that Attica in the time of Ogyges was overwhelmed with Waters, which words, though, as I have said already, they may be, and they are a very great confirmation to the truth of that opinion which I have endeavoured to assert, that Noah and Ogyges were really the same, because the Floud, which is said to have happened in their times, is in profane and sacred Writers so plainly imputed to the same reason, the great Debauchery and Sensuality which then Reigned among Men, and particularly to the use of Belluine Conjunctions and promiscuous Copulations, without distinction of property, consanguinity or any other Relation, yet so farr as Cecrops is concerned, nothing hinders but there may be an Anachronisme committed by the Greeks, or a confounding of Two Times and Stories together, for I am inclinable to believe that what I have already offered, besides what I have still further [Page] to suggest, concerning Cecrops his being the same with Adam, will be of greater weight with any considering Man to prove them to have been the same, than the Two last Testimonies of Athenaeus and Suidas put together will be to part them in sunder from each other.
To which purpose it is still further to be observ'd, that these Ancient writers speak not only of Deucalions Floud, which they make to have happened after the time of Cecrops, and of that of Ogyges, which according to them was before it, but we have also an account of a Floud which happened in the time of Cecrops himself, by which all Attica was overflown, the occasion this: There was a controversie betwixt Neptune and Minerva to whose Patronage or Guardianship the City of Athens should belong, which being referred to a Counsel of the Gods, being Twelve in Number to determine, the verdict by the Testimony of Cecrops was given in favour of Minerva against the other, at which Apollodorus tells us, Apollod. Biblioth. l. 3. p. 222. [...], Neptune being very angry overflowed the Thriasian Field, and laid all Attica under Water. The Moral of which Fable is this: [Page] Attica is the Ancient or newly created Earth, Athena or Minerva is, as I shall shew more largely by and by, the Aetherial or subtle matter of the universe, and Neptune is the Element of Water, or all kind of M [...]ist and Watry substance here below, and these Two, the Aether and the Water contended together, to which of them the Fertility and Fruitfulness of the Earth was chiefly due, which being referred to the decision of Cecrops or the reasonable Nature, he gives Judgment in favour of Minerva or the Aetherial matter, which is the great principle of Life and Vegetation in the Universe, and which though, in the productions of this lower World, it make use of the Moist and Watry Substance as its Instrument in all its operations, yet is that substance Phlegmy and unactive, having nothing vital or operative in it self, any otherwise than as it is actuated and impregnated by the fruitful and enlivening influences of the Aetherial or Heavenly matter, and then he adds, without any strict and sacred regard to truth, but minding only to fill up the outward form and Schesmatism of the Fable, that Neptune being angry at this determination, overflow'd the Thriasian Field, &c. by which nothing else is meant than [Page] that Neptune or the Watry substance of the Universe, does still continue, though in an inferior and subservient way, to be aiding and assisting to the Aetherial matter in all its Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral productions. And this is the meaning of what the same Apollodorus tells us Biblioth. l. 3. c. 13. in the beginning of the same Chapter, that when this contention first arose between Neptune and Minerva, Neptune making the first tryal of his skill, [...], and striking with his Trident upon the middle of the Acropolis or highest eminence of the City of Athens, he made that Water to gush out, which (continuing to after Generations) was (in the time of Apollodorus, who was himself an Athenian) called Erectheis, from [...], terra, because it was forced out of the Earth, by the stroke of Neptunes Trident, and this is nothing else but a Mythological description of the Eruption of Fountains and Rivers and other subterraneous Waters, which being kept in, without having any vent, were Anciently looked upon as one of the causes of Earthquakes, and thence Neptune had his A. Gell. Noct. A [...]t. l. 2. c. 28. Epithets of [...] and [...]. Agellius. Quaenam else causa videatur, quamobrem [Page] terrae tremores fiant, non modò his communibus hominum sensibus opinionibusque compertum non est, sed nè inter Physicas quidem Philosophias satis constitit, ventorum nè vi accidant specus hiatusque terrae subeuntium, an aquarum subter, in terrarum cavis undantium fluctibus pulsibusque, ità uti videntur existimâsse antiquissimi Graecorum, qui Neptunum [...] appellaverunt.
But after Neptune had made this effort to obtain the Dominion of Athens, then it came to Minerva's turn to shew what she could do, and the [...] Apollod. ib., taking Cecrops to witness of the feat she was about to perform, produced that Olive-tree, which to the time of Apollodorus remained in Pandrosium: that is, it was first necessary that Neptune or the Watry Element should moysten and prepare the Ground, before Minerva or the Aetherial, could impregnate it and make it Fruitful, according to that passage of Moses in the Book of Genesis, Gen. 2. 5, 6. where such another Deluge as this of Cecrops, that is, not a wasting and destructive, but a prolifick and impregnating Deluge is described, and a Deluge not occasioned by Rain, but by the Ebullition [Page] of subterraneous Waters. And every Plant of the Field before it was in the Earth, and every Herb of the Field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to Rain upon the Earth, and there was not a Man to Till the Ground, but there went up a mist from the Earth and Watred the whole Face of the Ground. Furthermore though this Aetherial substance be the cause and principle of all manner of Fruitfulness and Plenty, yet the Olive is here only instanced in, as being so Fat and Rich a production, that it is a fit emblem of Fruitfulness in the general considered, or else the Olive being Anciently looked upon as a Symbol of Peace, is fitly ascribed to Minerva or the Aetherial matter, which being pure and simple, and separated from the Vapours and Exhalations of this Atmosphere, by which all Storms and Tempests are occasioned, is the seat and region of rest and Peace, as Homer describes the region upon the top of Olympus, which was thought to carry its Head above the Clouds,
Neither is it any wonder to hear Apollodorus speaking of this contention between Neptune and Minerva, as if it had been a literal and real Emulation between Two Divine Persons, and saying that the Olivetree which Minerva upon that occasion had produced, was even in his time to be seen in Pandrosium, and that the Water which Neptunes Trident had at that time forced out of the Earth, much after the same manner, as the Rod of Moses is recorded in Sacred Story to have done out of the Rock, continued still to be a Monument of what had happened even in his Days, for nothing is more certain than that the Ancient Greeks, as far off and farther than the time of Apollodorus, did not understand their own Mythology, which had [Page] been delivered down by Tradition to them from their Fathers, which was the reason they understood many things, in a literal and not unfrequently, in an absurd and impossible sense, which had a very natural and easie, however Mystical and Hieroglyphick meaning, and so Apollonius speaks of Orpheus his drawing Trees and Rivers after him, which I have shewn plainly in what sense it is to be understood, and that by the Antient Orpheus nothing but the Sun is or can possibly be conceived to be meant, as of a thing that was really and literally performed, and directs us to a place where some of those Trees were Anciently to be seen,
There is also a Third reason of this sirname [...] given to Cecrops, which the Ancients have mentioned, but such a reason it is, as I scarce thought worth setting down, being manifestly nothing to the purpose, and that is, that being an [Page] Aegyptian born, and coming afterwards into Greece, he came by this means to be Master of Two Languages, the Aegyptian and the Greek, as if [...] and [...] Two Languages, and Two Natures were the same. Eusebius, [...] Euseb. Chron. l. 1. [...]. And to the same purpose Suidas, [...] Suid. in [...] v. eund. etiam in [...] ubi alias quasdam causas [...] adducit, sed meo judicio futiles & inept as. v. etiam de his omnibus Phavorin. in voce. [...].
But in the Sixth place, to evidence yet still more clearly how contradictory to themselves the Ancients are in their account of time, when they make Cecrops to have Reigned after the Ogygian Floud, it is to be considered what Hyginus hath reported concerning his Genealogy; that he had to his Mother the Earth, and to his Hygin. Fab. 48. collat. cum Fab. 158. Father Vulcan: nay not only Hyginus but Antroninus Liberalis, the Author of the Metamorphoses calls him expresly [...], Cecrops the Son of the Earth. Nothing Anton. lib. [...]. c. 6. initio. can Answer more exactly to the Story of Adam, than this account of Antiquity, which makes Cecrops to have been [Page] the Son of the Earth, and by his being also the Son of Vulcan, nothing else is meant, but that he was also the Son of God, or of the Sun who was Worshipped as the Supream Numen by the Ancient Heathens, for Vulcan and the Sun are the same, who had not his Name, as is commonly thought, from Tubal Cain in Genesis, to whom Moses in the same place gives this character, that he was an instructor of every Artificer in Brass and Iron, which added to the likeness of the sound, created this conceit that Tubalcain and Vulcan were the same, but Vulcan with the Addition of an Aeolique Digamma is El Kanna. Deus Zelotypus, as God is expresly called Exod. 20. 5. And Fire and Jealousie are frequently in Scripture compared together, so that from hence, without question, from the Hebrew Kanna, is the Latin Candeo, Candens, Candidus, Candor, (all which words do signifie, first and most properly the colour of a glowing Iron or Furnace in their utmost extremity of heat) from thence also are the Nounes Candela, and cicindela, and the Verb excandesco, with its derivative excandescentia, as also the compounds incendo, succendo, succensus, succenseo, and as by the Latins he is called Vulcanus, so by the Greeks Hephaestus, that [Page] is, ab eshta, the Father of Fire, as Bochartus before me hath observed, though he apply it only to the Fire of Smiths Forges or other Culinary or Artificial Fires, of which Vulcan was thought to be the inventor, but in truth Vulcan is the Element of Fire, and more particularly the body of the Sun it self, to which all our sublunary Fires, whether Artificial or Natural or of what kind soever do ow their being and their propagation, and which though fed and supported by grosser Fewel, yet are they kindled and ventilated by the subtle matter, which having its chief residence in the body of the Sun, is yet notwithstanding plentifully diffused through the whole Creation, and by the same Analogy, Aesculapius or [...], which is another name of the Sun, is as much as Eshel ab, the Father of the Fields, or the God of Herbs, because all vegetation is owing to his influence, and I have already observed in Discourse of the Tetragrammaton. other Papers, that See the Etymons of Plato, Chrysippus, Speusippus, Chanthes and others in Macr [...]bius, which are all of them very frigid and plainly f [...]olish, as the Greeks ar [...] usually in all their Etymologies, Macrob. Saturn. l. [...]. c. 17. [...] is as much as ab helion or pater excelsus, and Priapus, as much as Pri ab, or pater fructuum, both of which are but Two other Names of the same multifarious and Polyonymous Numen. [Page] Besides that Vulcan and the Sun are the same, will appear not only from the Etymology of this word it self in Latin and of Hephaestus in Greek, but also from the Fable of his being thrown down from Heaven by Jupiter, or by the universal Nature, or that Divine providence and Eternal wisdom to which the Fabrick and contrivance of this World is owing, and therefore Homer measures his fall by the motion of the Sun, with whom he first sets out in the Morning, and with whom in the Evening he ends his course, as much as to say, that these Two motions, the motion of Vulcan and of the Sun are the same, being so exactly agreeable to one another, for thus Vulcan speaks to his Mother in Homer, perswading her to be quiet, when Jupiter, whose Power is irresistible, was angry,
And then it follows soon after,
— [...]—
But in the Hymn to Apollo which is ascribed, among others, to Homer, it is Juno her self, not Jupiter, who is said to have cast him down, which though it be a new Argument, besides the Authority of Athenaeus, whom I remember somewhere to have called the Legitimacy of these Hymns into Question, that the Author of the Hymns is not the same with the writer of the Ilias and the Odyses, yet it is out of all dispute that these Hymns are very Ancient, and in this very passage in the Hymn to Apollo, Vulcan is made to have fallen into the lap of Thetis who took care of him, which is no more than a Poetical description of the setting of the Sun, who is by the Poets supposed to refresh himself and his weary Horses every Night in the Ocean. It is Juno her self that speaks.
With so long a fall as this it so happened, as well it might, that Vulcan was miserably lamed, as Lucian hath expresly observed, Lu [...]i [...]n. D [...] de Sa [...]rif. [...] [Page] [...], which lameness of his was nothing else but a Poetical description of the inequality of the Days and Nights according to the different seasons of the Year, and different periods of the Suns motion; and all this I hope, may pass for as tolerable an account who Vulcan was, and for as good a proof, that Intell. Syst. c. 4. p. 489, 490. by him the Sun or the Supream Numen was Anciently understood, as that which the Author of the Intellectual System hath given us, a Man that hath heaped a great many Authorities together to very little purpose, and is nothing but meer industry without a Genius in any thing of this Nature, though in the Preface to his work he pretends great familiarity with Philological Learning; and yet to prevent Jealousy he declares, as his manner is, in Proclamation stile, that for our parts, we neither call Philosophy nor yet Philology our Mistress; but it seems they are both of them kind Friends at a need, for we serve our selves of either as occasion requireth, and perhaps it is true of them, with relation to his Worship, what Agamemnon said of his Charming Chryseis,
— [...]—
But it does not follow that the kindness is equal on all sides, for I doubt Philology is coy, though the Doctor be willing, and it is usually seen in Misses and such kind of Harlotry Creatures, that they are but the more shy for being Courted so much, however it is ill done to make his Boast in Print of a fair Ladies kindness, and worse to represent her as a common Jilt, that is ready upon every occasion; so that the Doctor must not hereafter think it strange or unjust, if Philology, who after all his braggs was never half so inward with him, as he is pleased to pretend, be now more cautious, more sullen and reserv'd, than ever she was before.
Furthermore, as by Vulcan it is manifest beyond contradiction, that the Sun is to be understood in the Mythology of the Ancients, so also the Cyclops who are by the Poets fained to be his Ministers in the forming of the Thunder and Lightening, will admit of no other meaning or interpretation, being nothing else but partial effects, attributes and considerations of the same supposedly Supream Numen. For the Sun in the Greek Poets by reason of his raising those exhalations from whence the Clouds, Rain, Snow, Winds, Hail, Thunder and Lightning, and such like meteors [Page] are formed, hath the Epithets of [...], and [...], and [...], and [...], and by the Latins for the same reason he is called Altitonans, Altisonus, and Tonans, and because of the great noises, and terrible eruptions of the Furnaces of Aetna, and Vesuvius, therefore by the Poets he was wittily represented as forming his Thunder there. For this reason it was that Vulcan, though he were indeed nothing else but the Supream Numen, in the sense of the Ancients, who esteemed the Sun as such, yet considering him as the Author and maker of the Thunder, he is represented as the Son of Jupiter, and [...] or Juno; of Jupiter, because Jupiter as I shall prove is the same with the Sun, by whom Cic. de. N. D. inter pl [...] res Vulcanos tertium numerat filium Jovis ac Junonis, qui Lemni fabric [...] traditur praefuisse. v. & vet. Schol. in Hom. Il. [...]. v. 609. all exhalations and meteors are raised, and of [...] or Juno, because [...] is the Region of the Aire or Atmosphere, within which compass the Thunder is confined, and to whose resistance it owes the double terror of its noise and flashing. The very Name Cyclops is a sufficient argument, who it was that was meant by it, for the Cyclops were so called from their being supposed to have one circular or orbicular Eye in the [Page] middest of their Forehead, as the Sun is a Circular or Orbicular luminary in the middest of Heaven, which may not unjustly be called the Forehead of the Ʋniverse, as being to sense the highest and most elevated part of it, so Hesiod describes the Cyclops in his Theogony,
And to this purpose it is that Macrobius produces a fragment of an Ancient Greek Writer, wherein the Sun is expresly called Macrob. Saturnal. l. 1. c. 23. See also the answer of Serapis in the Oracle to Nicocreon the King of Cyprus, where representing himself as the universal omnipresent Numen, he calls the Sun [...], his bright or refulgent Eye. ib. 2. 20. in Fine—v. etiam c. 21. ib. p. 256, 257. ed Lug. Pat. 1628. Cic. de Divin. p. 449. ed Lond. 1681. [...], the Eye of Jupiter,
Where by Jupiter the Aether or the Azure Sky is to be understood, of whom the Sun is here called the Eye, for this was one sense in which the Name Jupiter was taken, though at others it were restrained [Page] only to signifie the body of the Sun, because the subtle matter in that Heavenly Luminary, and that which is dispersed abroad through the large and spacious Regions of the Aether, differ only in degree, that is, in greater or lesser proportions of purity and tenuity from one another, and this according to the sense of the Ancients themselves, as appears by a fragment of Tully cited by himself in his Book De Divinatione,
And that the Aether it self is sometimes expresly called by the Name of Jupiter, we have the Authority of the same Tully for it, who cites a fragment of Ennius to this purpose,
Adspice hoc sublime candens, quem invocant omnes Jovem.
And also of Euripides which he thus Translates. [...]ic. de [...]. D. p. 420, 421. edit ut supr [...]—adde [...]am loc. Macrobii l. 1. c. 18. Physici [...], quia solem mundi mentem esse dixerunt, mundus autem vocatu [...] caelum quod appel [...]ant Jovem, unde Aratus de caelo dicturus, ai [...] [...]—id ib. c. 21. solem Jovis (i. e. Aetheris) oculam appellat antiquitas.
The Cyclops therefore, that is, the Eyes of the Ʋniverse, are the same with the Sun, who is expresly so called, and for their different Names, Brontes, Steropes, and Pyracmon, they are all but so many partial considerations of the same Numen, considered as employed in forming the Thunder, the last of them denoting the manual operation which was supposed to be performed upon a Fabulous Anvil in the Cavernes of Aetna and other places of Sicily, and the Two first of them signifing the Two different effects, the one of Noise or Thunder, the other of Lightning, consequent upon the operation, and therefore it is observable that Claudian, having first named Mulciber, that is, Vulcan himself, to whom he ascribes the formation of Thunder, which [Page] Mulciber, is as much as Melec Abir, the Potent or Powerful King, as the Sun in the sense of the Ancients did very well deserve to be called, being by them looked upon as the Supream Numen, he then describes his Three Ministers, that are supposed to be assistant to him in his operation, as it were dividing the Genus into the several Species of which it consisted, in his Third Book De consulatu Honorii.
Neither is it any wonder to find the opera fabrilia, all kinds of working in Iron, Brass or Steel, or any other hard Metal ascribed to Vulcan, as well as the making of Thunder; because Vulcan as I have said, being the Sun or the Element of Fire, whatever works are performed by Fire, are rightly ascribed to him as their cause, and therefore all sorts of Weapons whatever are by Juvenal called Arma Vulcania,
Nay, not only so, but because of the Analogy and resemblance which all the Works of Art have to one another, as to the skill and contrivance by which they are effected at least, though not as to the materials of which they consist, therefore all such Works are sometimes attributed by the Poets to Vulcan, as the several Houses and Apartments of the Gods in Homer are, though such do not use to be built of Iron or Brass or any other Metal, but by this was only meant that the Sun according to the Ancient Doctrine, was the great Architect and Demiurgick nature by which all the Symmetry of the Universe was contrived.
Hom. Il. [...]. 605, &c. speaking of the Gods after revelling all Day, going to their several apartments at Night.
In which words there are Two things especially to be remarked, First as to the Feast of the Gods, of which these words of Homer give us the conclusion, by conducting them all home to their several apartments at Night, [...]nothing else is meant by it, but that the Ancient Poets looked upon the greatest part of their reputed Gods, as the Epicureans, and Stoicks afterwards determined, to be nothing else but so many several concretions of Aetherial matter animated with a mind or understanding, which while the Sun is up, who was supposed at Night to repose himself in the Sea, doe all of them bask themselves and rejoyce in his presence, with which all the Animal World is always infinitely pleased and delighted, but in his absence they are Sad and Melancholy, and betake themselves, as it were, to forgetfulness and sleep; this is the meaning of Juno, that is, the Aire or Atmospherical region receiving a chearful Cup from the hands of Vulcan, that is, the Sun, by which the Atmosphere is rarified and warmed, and all its numerous Inhabitants are wonderfully delighted and refresht, and of the same Vulcan's Ministring to the rest of the Gods, that is, to all other Animated Aetherial concretions, who are represented as full [Page] of Jolitry and Laughter, wanting neither Mirth nor Musick, nor good Cheer, all which cannot be better represented than in the words of Homer himself.
The Second thing observable from the words of Homer above cited is the Epithet of [...] given to Vulcan in that and other places of that Poet, which word the Scholiast renders by [...], which must not be so understood, as if he were lame of both Feet at once, but, as I have said, by Vulcan's being Lame, the inequality of the Days and Nights in several places, according to the various respects and distances of the Sun is to be understood, so that this Lameness is not of both Feet at once, but of each at different times [Page] and seasons, that Leg of Vulcan which is the shortest in Winter, being in Summer the longest with respect to the same place. Wherefore [...] might have been better Interpreted by [...] utroque pede malè affectus, which is true of both Feet at once, with respect to their disproportion, though the short one be only properly said to be Lame, or if you will, he may be said to be Lame on both Feet, because this inequality of Days and Nights, considered at equal distances on both sides of the Aequator, makes the one Foot as much too long, as the other is too short, and the Sun according to this Mythological way of speaking, can no where be said to be [...], perfect in his Limbs, upright and steady in his motion, but where and when the Days and Nights are equal.
But to these Two things there is also a Third to be added, which comes now into my mind, and that is, that in this place of Homer, he is not only called [...] but [...], in which composition the Preposition [...] in conjunction with [...], denotes the equal splendor and glory of the rayes of the Sun, by which he is, on all sides environed and encompassed.
So true is it what Macrobius tells us, Macrob. Saturnal. l. 1. c. 17. speaking in the person of Vettius Praetextatus, who thus replies upon his friend Avienus demanding of him some rational account of the several Names by which Apollo or the Sun was called in the Mythology of the Ancient Heathens, Cave aestimes, mi Aviene, Poetarum gregem cùm de Diis Fabulantur, non ab Adytis plerumque Philosophiae semina mutuari, Have a care, Avienus, whatsoever you do, that you be not guilty of so great a mistake, as to think the Poets did not consult Nature in the Fables which they made concerning the Gods, or that they did not borrow the First Seeds and Principles of all their Mythology from the depths of Philosophy and from the inmost recesses of Physiological Learning. And whoever he is that goes about to explain the Mysteries of the Heathen Fabulous Antiquity without this clue of Nature for his guide, will not only loose his time and labour, but also run himself into new and inextricable difficulties, instead of explaining or interpreting the old.
Again, as the Cyclops were nothing else, as hath been shewn, but so many Poetical descriptions and adumbrations of the Sun, so the Shield or Target of Minerva, which by Greek and Latin Authors is called [...] [Page] or Aegis, and which the Scholiast upon Homer somewhere calls [...], a piece of Armour of Vulcans making, is nothing else but another such Poetical description and Hieroglyphick adumbration of the same thing, for first of all, this Shield is attributed to Jupiter, and thence it is that in the Greek Poets he hath the Epithet of [...] bestow'd upon him, to this belongs that place of Virgil Aeneid. 8.
Where by nigrantem Aegida nothing else is meant but the Sun himself wrapt up and darkned in Clouds, as appears by the words immediately following, nimbosque c [...]eret; and by Jupiter in this place, not the Sun, but the whole Aether or Sky is understood as in the Instances already produced. But at other times by [...] or Jupiter, nothing else but the Sun is meant, as appears by those Epithets given to him in Homer, of [...], and [...], all which Epithets are manifestly belonging to the Sun, to whose exhaling and attracting virtue both the Thunder [Page] and the Clouds are owing; and in this sense also [...] is to be understood when the same Poet calls him [...], he being the Principal Inhabitant and as it were Lord of the Aether, and therefore this Epithet or Character, [...], belongs in a more peculiar and eminent manner to him, especially considering that so long as he continues above the Horizon, the Stars are all sunk into their sockets, and seem to be utterly extinguisht and put out, so that he hath all the Aether to himself, and there is no other Luminary to be seen in all that vast Region of subtle matter but he, though sometimes this Character is likewise given to the Earth, which is as manifestly, as sensibly, and to sense more constantly, an Inhabitant of the Aether than he, as in that of Euripides produced by Macrobius,
And the drift of that Chapter where this passage of Euripides is alledged, is to prove that Jupiter and the Sun are the same, which is that which I am now about, and in favour of this opinion, he cites that passage of Homer at the latter end of [...]is First Iliad, [Page]
[...].
The Interpretation of which place in him is very ingenious, but it being long, I shall not Transcribe it, the thing it self that Jupiter and the Sun are sometimes the same, being already sufficiently clear, and to this place of Homer he adds another of Plato from his Timaeus where the word [...] cannot possibly bear any other signification. In this sense the word Jupiter is plainly to be understood in that of Ovid in his Fasti,
Where Juno is the Moon, the Wife of Jupiter, and the Queen of Heaven, to whom the Patronage of the Calends belonged, they being computed from her Renovation, at least Antiently they were so, before the Intercalary Days were added to the Roman Month, though Juno or [...] sometimes signifies more than this, it signifies not only the Moon, but all the sublunary Region, or more particularly the Atmosphere, which we Inhabit, which is the reason of the frequent quarrels that happen in the [Page] Poets betwixt Jupiter and Juno, because Juno is the Region of Clouds, and Storms, and Tempests, by which Jupiter, that is, the Liquid Aether, in which the Atmosphere swims, is, as it were, ruffled and discomposed, and by which the Sun is frequently darkned and obscured. And as Juno in this place of Ovid is the Moon, so is Jupiter the Sun, to whose illumination the Ides, that is, the Full Moon is owing, and therefore to him they then Sacrificed a White Lamb, whose Whiteness was an Emblem of the Day of which the Sun is Lord and Master, and for the same reason the Flamen Dialis, or Priest of Jupiter was used to wear a White Hat; they are the words of Varro cited by Agellius, who also confirms this observation of the White Sacrifices being Offered to Jupiter. Is solus Agel. Noct. Att. l. 10. c. 15. (Flamen Dialis) album habet galerum; vel quod maximus est, vel quod Jovi immolata hostia alba fieri oporteat. And what these Authors say of Jupiter, that Macrobius affirms of Apollo, that he also was appeased and Worshipped with White Sacrifices; where speaking of the first rise of the Ludi Apollinares among the Romans, he says, Decemviris praeceptum est, ut Graeco Macrob Sa [...]urnal. l. 1. c. 17. ritu hisce hostiis sacrum sacerent, Apollini [...]ove aurato & capris duabus albis auratis, [Page] Latonae bove feminâ auratâ. and to all this we may add that of Orpheus produced by Macrobius,
And that of the Oracle of Clarius Apollo in the same Author,
But when it is further said in that place of Homer, which Macrobius alledging Cornificius for his Voucher in it applies to the Sun,
That all the Gods followed him, by this, saith Macrobius, Sidera intelliguntur; quae cum eo ad occasus ortusque quotidiano impetu caeli feruntur, eodemque aluntur humore. [...] enim dicunt sidera & stellas, [...], id est; [...], quod semper incursu sint, [...]. where to pass by his Etymologies, which I matter not, having assigned, as I am verily perswaded, See my discourse of the Tetragrammaton. a much better my self, yet here is a plain confirmation of what I have so lately [Page] asserted, that by the Gods in the place of Homer, the Aetherial concretions of subtle matter, whether they be Stars, or other to us invisible consistencies are to be understood, and so also in the place of Plato produced by Macrobius out of the Timaeus, as nothing else but the Sun can possibly be understood by [...] as hath been already declared, so it is every whit as clear that by [...] and [...], he means nothing but the Stars; his words are these, [...]. that is, Jupiter the great Captain of the Heavenly host, sitting in, and driving himself his flying Chariot or Calesh, leads the Eternal Dance or March of Heaven, ordering and disposing all things as seems best to himself, and being followed by an Army or Host of Gods and Daemons. where it is not only most evident what Macrobius immediately subjoynes: His verbis magnum in caelo ducem solem vult sub appellatione Jovis intelligi, alato curru velocitatem sideris monstrans. But it is every whit as undenyable that the Gods and Daemons that follow him, can be nothing but the Stars, and other subtle concretions of Caelestial Bodies, and the expression [Page] is remarkable, and is another instance how conversant Plato was in the Eastern Learning, [...], which is plainly the Language of the Scripture it self, Gen. 2. 1. The Heavens and the Earth were finished and all the Host of them. in the Hebrew, col Tsebaam. the Seventy, [...]. but it would be more exactly rendred in the Language of Plato [...], all their Army; though [...] be here intended by the Seventy to signifie the order of an Army in their March, which is otherwise more properly, as well in March as in Battalia called [...], and the Art of doing it is [...], and many other places of Scripture there are that are too numerous to bear a repetition, and too well known to need it, wherein the Sun Moon, and Stars are called the Host of Heaven, but all that I take notice from it is that the Phrase of Plato is of Eastern growth, and that this is a new confirmation that by [...] and [...] the Stars are to be understood; but yet notwithstanding it is not without something of impropriety that the [...] and [...] are here joyned together by Plato, as if they were the same thing, for as [...] in the Language of these Ancient Writers did properly [Page] fignifie an Aetherial substance endued with life a [...]d understanding, so [...] is an Aerial, whose place of abode is much inferior to the other, being in the Air or Atmosphere, and parts nearer adjoyning and bordering to the Earth, and therefore Possidonius in Macrobius endeavours to excuse it, by supposing that even the Daemons have something of the Aether mixt and incorporated into their Airy Vehicles, though not so pure, or of so fine a consistence, or in so great a proportion; the words of Macrobius are, Nomen autem Demonum cùm Deorum appellatione conjungit; aut quia Dii sunt [...], id est, scientes futuri, aut ut Possidonius scribit in libris quibus titulus est [...] quia ex Aetheriâ substantiâ parta atque divisa qualitas illis est. And then follow some very silly Etymologies which I think much to Transcribe; this which hath been already mentioned by Macrobius, [...], being certainly false, though I perceive the Greeks are generally very fond of it, for want of sufficient skill in their own Language. For [...] is qu. [...], from [...] or [...] terra, as v. nos. suprâ p. 366. ut & in diatribâ de Tetragrammato. [...] is the same with [...], and [...] as much as [...], and [...], which is otherwise called [...] from [...] [Page] terra, is as much as [...] signifying properly the rent of Land, the Land being considered as the Principle and the Rent as the Ʋse accuring from it, and other instances there are which it is needless to mention; to conclude this matter, the same sort of beings are otherwise called [...], Heroes, from [...] which is the region of the Air to which they are confined, and Hesiod describing them gives them expresly this Character, that they are clothed with Airy Vehicles, and that at all times and in all places, they are perpetually hovering about the Earth,
And so also Apollonius describes the Nereides or Sea Nymphs, which are conversant in and about the Water, as these [...] or [...] are about the Land, as [...], like to or Clothed with Vehicles of Air, as being most suitable and congenerous to the Region of the Atmosphere to which they are confined.
[...] Apollon. Argonau [...]. l. 4. v. 945, &c. [...].
[Page] And these Demons or Nymphs whether by Land or Sea, were not supposed to wander all about by perpetual long Journies and uncertain motions, but were fixed and determined to a certain place, and were as certain inhabitants of it, as the Men of any Town or City are known to be, and therefore the same Apollonius calls them [...] the inhabiting Daemons; where taking his leave of the Island of Electra, which the Ib. l. 1. v. 919, &c. Scholiast Interprets of Samothrace, and speaking of the Religious Mysteries there in use, he says,
—— [...].
And such Daemons as these by the Latins, are sometimes called Penates, perhaps from the Greek [...], (as Pampinus is thought to be from [...], and pubes from [...]) and by the Greeks otherwise [...] and G. J. Voss. de permut. lit. [...]; and besides these there were also the [...] or [...], the underground or subterraneous Daemons, as the other with respect to the whole Earth, not reguarding any particular place, to which they belonged were called [...], and these as well as the other [Page] were Aerial Daemons too, having Bodies or Vehicles made of the subterraneous Vapour, or of the Element of Tartarus which was supposed to be of an Aerial consistence, but withal Dark, Gloomy, and Stagnant, never refined or rarified by the presence of the Sun, or any other Heavenly body, and this was the true notion of Tarratus, it was a Dark and Gloomy Hemisphere on the other side of the Earth, of an [...] consistence, which is the reason Homer expresly gives it the Epithet of [...], the im [...]iration of unfortunate and tormented [...], and of equal capacity and extent with this enlightened Hemisphere which we Inhabit. This is plainly and undeniably the sense of Homers words where he gives us a description of it, in [...]. where Jupiter severely threatening any of the Gods that without his consent or privity should offer to assist or take part either with the Greeks or Trojans, says,
[...].
And that this is indeed the true meaning of Tartarus in the sense of the Ancients, [Page] is not only plain from the words themselves, but is still further vouched by the opinion of the Scholiast concerning them, which is expressed in these following words, [...]. that is, By this the Poet signifies that the World is a Sphere, of which the Earth is the Centre, and that the strait lines drawn from it on both sides from the circumference are equal. And again, [...]. that is, As the Heaen or the upper Hemisphere is divided into Three parts or regions, there is the regio of Aire, extending to the Clouds, and that of Aether to the Stars, and then the Starry Region it self, so it is also in the subterraneous space, first there is the body of the Earth it self, and then there is Hades, (which this Author makes to be as it were the Atmosphere to the neither Surface of the Earth,) and all behind is Tartarus.
Moreover Macrobius having alledged that place of Homer concerning Jupiters going to Supper in the Ocean, to prove that Jupiter and the Sun are the same, which [Page] is also still further confirmed by what he saith of the Assyrians that they Worshipped the Sun, sub nomine Jovis calling him by the Name of [...], and at the end of the same Chapter by a passage cited out of the Orphaick Verses, wherein Jupiter, Bacchus, and the Sun are affirmed to be the same, and he is also expresly affirmed to be the Father and maker of all things,
Yet as hath been shewn already, he does not so obstinately stick to his sense of the word [...], as to restrain it wholly within that compass, and to allow it no other signification, for in that fragment which he produces out of some Ancient Writer, whose name he hath not acquainted us with,
[...]
It is manifest that by [...] not the Sun it self, but the whole Aether is to be understood, of which the Sun is here called the Eye, and in this sense it was that the Sun is called the [...] or Shield of Jupiter, taking Jupiter for the [Page] Aether, and this Aegis or Shield, was said to be made of the Skin of the capra Amalthea, or Amalthean Goat, which was only a Symbolical or Aenigmatical desCription of the Aether, which is, as I have said, the cause of all plenty and fruitfulness in the Universe, for the Goat by reason of its Milk, and of the delicacy and nutritive Nature of its Flesh, and of the usefulness of its Skin and Hair for Clothing, was a very proper Emblem of Plenty, and the Addition of Amalthea to it makes it more, for Male in Hebrew signifies plenum esse, and millah or millath is plenitudo, and from thence there is no Question but the word Amalthea is derived, and the true meaning of the [...] or copiae cornu, after all the Fabulous representations of the Greeks and Latins concerning it, is nothing else but a ray of the Sun, which rayes diffuse Plenty and Fruitfulness wheresoever they come, for Keren in Hebrew signifies an Horn, and perhaps it might also signifie, though we have no such signification now extent in our Bibles, a ray of the Sun, for Karan derived from it, signifies lucere, and thence the Greeks used [...] for the same thing, though this signification was afterwards lost in a Fable, and they were ignorant, as of the Original [Page] of many other things which they borrowed from the East, so also of this; but to make it still more evident that by the capra Amalthea, the Aether is to be understood, and consequently that by that Shield which was made of her Skin we are to understand the Sun, I will here produce a fragment of the Orphaick Verses cited by Saturn. l. 1. c. 18. Macrobius, where he speaks as that Author words it, De ornatu vestituque solis in sacris Liberalibus, which will put the matter out of Question, for there among other Ornaments of the Sun, he assigns him as a Garment, the Skin of a spotted Deer, which for all the reasons above mentioned, may be as proper an Emblem of Plenty as the other, and over and above by reason of the nimbleness and agility of both these Animals, the restless Activity and Swiftness of the subtle matter of the Heavens might be signified, the words of the real or pretended Orpheus are,
[...].
That is, that the Sun was first to be Clothed with a Vail of a Purple, or Azure or Flame [Page] colour, like to his bright and splendid rayes and over that to wear the broad and motley Skin of an Hind or Deer full of Spots on the Right Shoulder, which he tells us in the very next words was,
An Imitation or Emblem of the Stars and the Heavens.
This Shield of his, Jupiter is afterwards said to have given to Minerva, upon which she clapped the Head of Medusa, otherwise called the Gorgon's Head, which whoever beheld was immediately petrifi'd or converted into Stone, and this Shield of Jupiter or Minerva thus ordered and circumstanced according to this latter description, is thus represented and set forth by Virgil in the Eighth of his Aeneids,
The meaning of all which, which is without controversie to be Interpreted in a Physiological way, is this, Minerva is the same with Jupiter, as that word is sometimes taken, that is, the same with the [Page] Aether or subtle matter of the Heavens, and in this I perceive all the expositors are generally agreed, though I owe not mine own opinion to any of them, which is the greater Argument of its truth, when I concur so exactly with them without consulting any of them before hand. But yet I wonder how it came to pass, that the Learned writer of the intellectual System, who seems to be extravagantly fond at every turn of a Trinity, notwithstanding, as I have proved elsewhere, he hath made it his business to undermine and overthrow it, should in Minerva smell a Second Hypostasis, and out of her in conjunction with Jupiter and Juno, should be able to make out so plainly and so fully that the Romans had a Trinity, though he has none. The First Intell. System. p. 451. of these Divine Hypostases called Jove, being the fountain of the Godhead, and the Second of them called by the Latins, Minerva (which as Varro Interprets, was that wherein Ideae & exempla rerum, the Ideas and first exemplars or patterns of things were contained) fitly expressing the Divine Logos, and the Third Juno, called amor ac delicium Jovis, well enough Answering, as De Theol. Gent. l. 8. c. 12. Vossius thinks, to the Divine Spirit.
For if Jupiter and Minerva are both of them exactly the same, then they cannot [Page] make Two several and distinct Hypostases in the pretended Trinity of Pagan Rome, a thing so utterly fantastick, and depending upon no Ground or Colour, or so much as shadow of reason, that this alone might be enough to blast the Reputation of any less Celebrated Author, but aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus, it is the priviledge of great Men to doat when they please.
It is true indeed St. Austin makes a manifest distinction betwixt Jupiter and Minerva, representing Minerva as the uppermost, and Jupiter as the inferior and lower St. Aug. de Civ. D. l. 4. c. 10. part of the Aether, in these words, Si Aetheris partem superiorem Minerva tenere dicitur & hâc occasione fingere poetas, quod de Jovis capite nata sit, cur non ergo ipsa potius deorum Regina deputatur, quod sit Jove superior? but I shall prove by and by, that in this notion St. Austin and those from whom he had it were palpably mistaken, however if it be admitted for true, and if we suppose also, what hath been already proved, and what Cicero and St. Austin v. Loc. Augustini & Ciceronis cit. Intel Syst. p. 493. do also expresly affirm, that by Juno the Aire or Atmosphere is to be understood, from hence there results a Trinity not of Divine persons, but a Manichean composition of intergral parts, which I hope, the Doctor upon second thoughts, will not [Page] maintain to be good Christian Doctrine, and I am sure the Romans never drea [...] of Ib. p. 151. any such thing But when he is pleased to tell us out of Varro, that Minerva was that wherein Ideae & exempla rerum, The Ideas and first exemplars and patterns of things were contained. This agrees exactly well with that notion of Minerva which I pretend to establish; and that is, that by Minerva nothing else is meant, but the subtle matter in general, which I have already she [...] to be sometimes the meaning of Jupiter in Mythological Writers, and in which the first Ideas and patterns of things may very reasonably seem to have been drawn, as I See my Epist Ded, before the Discourse of the Messias; [...] 144, 145, 146. have elsewhere more largely represented, and am very glad after having formerly alledged the Authority of Seneca, to find also so great a Man as Varro, who was thought by Cicero, a very good Judge to deserve the Name of Doct [...]simus Romanorum, so favourable and propitious to my opinion.
But this will be further made out by considering first the Epithet which is in Homer given to Minerva, of [...] and secondly, the Name by which the Greeks are used to call her, [...]. For the First, [...] is as much as caesios, or caeruleos oculos habens, which refers to the A [...]ure colour of the S [...]y, or Aether [Page] which will be still more clear, by reflecting upon some other Epithets, which are bestowed upon other personated parts of the Universe by Homer, and which are all to be Interpreted in a Physiological way, as [...] or Juno, that is, the Aire or Atmosphaerical Region, is by the same Poet called [...], white Elbow'd, or white Armed, not only because this is in it self a beauty, and therefore is in general ascribed to any fair and Beautiful Woman, but also because the appearance of the Aire in a fair and serene Day is white, and if we compare the whole Universe, as Homer does in these Epithets to an Organized body, Minerva is the Eye, as being the uppermost, and the seat and Region of the Stars, and Juno is the Hand or Arme, being seated betwixt the Head and the Foot, and Thetis or the Sea, being lowermost, is the Foot, from whence she hath the Epithet in Homer of [...], or Silver footed, and the Earth in Hesiod is called [...] or broad Breasted, not so much by reason of its Situation in the Universe, considered as Organical, as for another Physiological reason, because the Earth is the Dea Multimammia of Antiquity, she that gives Food and nourishment to all things, and who [...]e Breasts are, as it were sucked, by all the Animal World.
Further, Juno is not only called in Homer, [...], but also [...] and [...], for with [...] I do not meddle, that not being to be expounded to any Physiological meaning, but being only the general Epithet of a grave and venerable Matron. The First of these Two Epithets is given her, not only because in general, large Eyes were, as they are still, accounted a Beauty in Greece, which is the use of [...], in composition to signifie largeness and excess, as in [...], and [...], but also because the Sun and Moon in their rising and setting by the refraction of the Atmosphere appear usually larger than at other times, or if this will not pass, as I am not very much concerned whether it do or no, yet [...] does certainly refer to the setting Sun, when the Sky by refraction usually appears redder than at other times, and for the same reason because of the more than usual redness of the Suns appearance at his rising, the Morning in Homer, that is that part of the Atmosphere which borders nearest upon the rising Sun, is called [...] rosie Fingered, for if the Atmosphere, as hath been shewn, be compared to the Arme of the Universe considered as Organical, then the Horizon is the Finger of [Page] that Arme. Now that [...], sitting or lying upon a Golden Couch or Seat, is the Physiological Epithet of the Atmosphere next adjoyning to the setting Sun, will appear from the place of Homer where it is used, at the end of his first Iliad,
[...].
And for the same reason the Morning season in Latin is called Aurora, qu. aurea Hora, according to the common Etymon, which when I compare it with this Epithet of [...] given to Juno in Homer, I believe to be the true one, from the more than ordinary brightness and refulgency of the Atmosphere at that time. From this place of Homer there are also two other things to be observed, First, That by [...] is manifestly understood the Sun, to whom he gives the Epithets of [...] and [...].
And so it is also no less clearly to be understood in another place already cited, though that reflection were not made upon it. [Page]
For that [...], cannot refer to the Aether which is every where present, in which sense it was that Aratus said,
— [...]—
It must therefore refer to the Sun, who is the great and distant inhabitant of the Aether and who was Worshipped by antiquity under a Thousand names as the Supream Numen.
Secondly, From this place of Homer we may observe one of those reasons, for which Antiquity made Juno or the Atmosphere to be the Wife of Jupiter or the Sun, because she lies by him every Night, as Juno in this place of Homer is represented to do,
But there is also another reason of this Fiction among the Ancients, and that is, that the Region within the Atmosphere is the Region and Seat of Generation, in [Page] which because the Suns influence hath so great and principal a share, and the Atmosphere is so necessary, as well to the production, as sustentation and maintenance of those Animals, that are to be met with in it, therefore Jupiter is said to be the Husband of Juno, who accordingly setteth out every Morning, fresh and lusty as a Bridegroom, and rejoyceth as a Gyant to run his course.
And as these are the Physiological Epithets of the several parts of the Universe considered asunder, so all of them considered together at one view, are called sometimes Pan, at others Proteus, Thetis, and Jupiter. Pan is the Ʋniversal nature considered together, as it were, in a lump, without distinction of parts. Proteus is the same nature differently modified, and putting on several shapes in several parts and Species of the Universe; so Homer saith of him Odyss. [...]. in these words,
[...].
And the same things are affirmed of him by Virgil, Ovid, Horace, and Silius Italicus, [Page] whose Testimonies it is needless to insert, all which is very wisely and skilfully accommodated by Orpheus in his Hymns to the Ʋniversal nature, putting on, as I have said, several shapes and colours, and appearances in several parts and Species of the World; his words are as follows,
[...].
The same is also the true Interpretation of Thetis, how that she might avoid the Marriage of Peleus, (And in another place the same Apollodorus she is said to have done the same to avoid the congression of Jupiter himself, his words are, l. 1. c. 3. [...].) disdaining as it seems, to submit to any mortal Embraces, is said to have concealed her self under several shapes, as of Fire and Water, and different sorts of Animals, they are the words of Apollodorus, l. 3. c. 12. [...]. [Page] that is, There are some say that Thetis being [...] H [...] unde [...] Juno. the Air [...] being in [...] tion superiour to the Wa [...]er, by which the Communication of Jupiter or the pure Aether was intercepted.—v. Natal. Com. Mythol. l. 8. c. 2. bred up by Juno, would by no means [...] perswaded to the enjoyment of Jupiter, at which Jupiter being very angry was resolved to Marry her to a Mortal, wherefore Pe [...]eus being instructed by Chiron how to catch her, and wacthing her narrowly through all her shapes, at length apprehends her, for she was sometimes hid in the appearance of Fire, sometimes in that of Water, and at others in that of some Animal or other, but Peleus never left her till she returned to her own proper shape again, which was that of a fair Nymph or Goddess of the Sea. This is the sense of what Apulejus saith concerning the Goddess Isis, whom he represents, though Macrobius somewhere Interprets it only of the Earth, as another Name or Emblem of the Universal Nature. Cujus Numen unicum, multiformi Apul. M [...] tam. l. 12. specie, ritu vario, nomine multijugo [...]otus veneratur orbis, whose single (but Universal and Omnipresent Deity) is worshipped by the whole World, in several shapes and species, by several Names, and after several manners. Lastly, the Universal Nature is sometimes represented, as changing it self into all shapes and appearances under the Name and Person of [...] or Jupiter; as in these passages [Page] of Aeschylus in the Grotian excerpta.
[...].
And again,
— [...].
But yet it is in different senses that the Universal Nature is represented by the Ancients under these Three Names of Proteus, Thetis, and Jupiter. It is called Proteus, from [...], as being the First cause of all things, for which reason it was that Orpheus in the Verses above cited, alluding to his Name gives [...], the Epithet of [...], that is, in the sense of that Ancient Poet, not first Begotten, but first Existing and in this sense he is said to put on several shapes, as displaying himself in several effects of his Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, and as many such effects as there are, more numberless than the Stars of Heaven, or the Sands of the Sea shore, which all of them put together make but a small and inconsiderable parcel [Page] of this immense diversity, so many are the shapes, colours, appearances and forms of this Mythological Proteus.
Again, When the Catholick or Universal Nature is shadowed out under the Name of Thetis, who is represented as putting on so many several shapes and appear ances, Thetis in this case does not signifie as in the other of Proteus, the efficient cause or the causa per quam, but the causa ex quâ or the causa materialis, the Ʋniversal Mass out of which this vast diversity of Innumerable Kinds and Species was formed, for Thetis is the Feminine of the Aegyptian or Alexandrian [...] or [...] or as Eusebius frequently expresses it, [...], all which are from the Hebrew Tohu, a word by which in the Mosaick account of the Creation and Origin of things, the chaos or Universal Mass is denoted, which [...], as I have said (Discourse of Tetragram.) elsewhere, is nothing else but choshek, or darkness because it is said in that state of things that there was choshek hal phnei Tehom, darkness upon the face of the Abyss. And therefore in a fragment of Aristophanes preserved by Lucian and by Suidas, [...] and [...] and [...] are made in a manner Synonymous to one another, [Page]
[...].
And a little after he gives [...] the Epithet of [...], where speaking of Love, he says,
[...],
[...].
For as chaos is from choshek, signifying darkness, so does hereb signifie that confusion and blindness which is occasioned by it, and [...], as it seems to me, is from nous, fugit, because all things then vanish and disappear. But at other times the Greeks not understanding the true meaning and original of these words, and having by length of time, and by Poetical sophistications corrupted the Tradition, which was, as it is represented in the writings of Moses, that there was once a time when this beautiful Fabrick and Structure of the Universe was a ruinous and confused heap, overwhelmed with darkness and inanimate silence, they made these several words which signifie the same thing, to be as it [Page] were persons descending from each other, as Hesiod tells us that Chaos begat Erebus and [...] and that [...] and Erebus in conjunction together, begat between them the Aether and the Day, which is nothing else but a plain Interpolation of the sacred Story, which makes the Night always as being prior to it in order of time, to preceed the Day, and makes the Day or the Light to have resulted, from the separation of the subtle parts of the Chaos from the more gross and heavy; the words of Hesiod in his Theogonie are,
[...].
And such another place as this is that of L. 3. de N. D. Cicero, where after other discourse the connexion of which it is needless here to reguard, speaking of Saturne, he says, Qui si est Deus, patrem quoque ejus Caelum esse Deum confitendum est. Quod si ità est, Caeli quoque parentes Dii habendi sunt, Aether & Dies, eorumque fratres & sorores: qui à Genealogis antiquis sic nominantur, Anor, Dolus, Metus, Labor, Invidentia, Fatum, Senectus, Mors, Tenebrae, Miseria, Querela, Gratia, Fraus, Pertinacia, [Page] Parcae, Hesperides, Somnia: quos omnes Erebo & Nocte natos ferunt. The true meaning of which, to put this Mythological and Mystical way of talking into a plainer dress, is this, that night and darkness as the Mosaick account does sufficiently assure us, was Superiour or antecedent to light or day that out of the Dark and Gloomy Chaos, the more subtle and volatil particles being separated, the Aether or the Day began to appear, and that the Brothers and Sisters, that is, the Companions, the Objects, the perpetual entertainment of both Day and Night are all these passions and accidents of Life, Amor Dolus, Metus, Labor, &c. or in the language of Juvenal,
Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gundia, discursus.
Further that by Thetis we are to understand the Universal and primigenial Mass, and that it is no other than the Aegyptian Thoth or the Tohu, will be still more clear by reflecting upon Tethys, which differs only by a Metathesis from the other, or rather by the change of of an aspirate for a lene in both places, than which there is no sort of permutation more familiar [Page] or more easie, and that Tethys is the same with Toth or Thoth or Tohu, I prove very plainly from this, that at sometimes in Ancient Writers it is taken for the Earth in opposition to the Sea, as in that of Homer,
And so also in these places of Hesiod in his Theogonie,
[...], Hesiod. Theog. p. 258. de Heins. [...]—
And again,
[...] ib. p. 262, [...]—
And so also the old Scholiast upon the place of Homer expounds it, [...]. Homer calls the Earth Tethys as being the Tithene, that is, the Nurse and Fostermother of all things, that are born or bred upon it, or out of it. Which place of the Scholiast is Transcribed by Suidas, and the Etymologist says thus, [Page]
which is the same thing.
And sometimes again it is taken no less plainly for the Sea in distinction from the Earth, as in that of Suidas, [...], for which he produces this fragment of some Ancient Greek Poet, or Epigrammatist, where it can be taken for nothing else,
[...] Videtur hoc quicquid est fragmenti decerptum ex veteri quodam Epigrammate [...] [...].
So it is also expounded by the Etymologist, though the place is corrupt, and I will take this occasion to mend it, [...] where it is manifest that after [...], we must insert, [...], otherwise from what went before, that [...] was as much as [...], it is a false inference, [...], &c. that is, For Water nourisheth and feedeth all things, or else Tethys is taken for the Water, because she is the Mistress or Goddess of the moist or Watery substance, by which all things are nourished.
Lastly, In this sense likewise Lucian p. 1050. edit, ut suprà plainly takes it in his Tragopodagra, where he also alludes to the Etymon of Tithene, which seems to have been very generally received among the Greeks,
[...].
In the Latin Poets it is evermore taken in this latter sense, without any one exception that I know of, unless it be these Two places of Ovid, both of them to be met with in the Fifth of his Fasti,
Duxerat Oceanus quondam Titanida Tethyn.
Qui terram liquidis, quà patet, ambit aquis.
And again a little after,
Pars Bacchum nutrisse putant: pars credidit esse
Tethyos has neptes Oceanique senis.
In both of which places Tethys is the Earth, as in the places of Homer and [Page] Hesiod above produced. But otherwise it is universally taken for the Sea or the Watery substance, as in that of Virgil, Georg. 1.
Teque sibi generum Tethys emat omnibus undis.
And Lucan, l. 1.
And l. 6.
Aut vaga cùm Tethys, Rutupinaque littora fervent.
And Silius Italicus. l. 3.
—Luna immissis percaerula bigis, Fertque refert (que) fretum, sequitur (que) reciproca Tethys.
Now the true reason why Tethys in these Ancient Writers is taken sometimes for the Earth, and at others for the Sea, is because the Hebrew Tohu, or the Aegyptian Thoth from whence it was derived, did signifie both of these together, the Primigenial Mass being described by Moses as overflown with Water, and as consisting of a poachy [Page] mixture of Earth and Water together, and any otherwise than this it is almost impossible to conceive, how the same word, in the usage and custom of the same Language, should come to fignifie Two things of a Nature so different from each other, as Earth and Water.
From whence it was that the Ancient Greeks were used to ascribe the Original of all their Gods, that is, all whether Aetherial or Aerial animated concretions sometimes, to the chaos, or cohshek, that is, the universal Mass, where the Aerial, Aetherial, Terrestrial and Aqueous parts were all of them jumbled in confusion together, and wrapt up in horrid silence and darkness, they not only affirming that Chaos was the First and Ancientest of all the Gods, as he must needs be, if he were the Source and Fountain of them all, according to that known Fragment of Epicharmus,
[...].
But expresly asserting that all the Gods were derived from thence, so Orpheus speaks in his Hymn of the Night, [Page]
[...]
Where [...] is manifestly the same with [...], and confirms what I have already said more than once, that [...] and choshek are the same, and there is no other possible Etymology that I can think of, of this word, unless it be from [...], as much as [...] or [...], or from [...], as if it were as much as [...], which are both of them defective, the first in Analogy, though not in Propriety of signification, but the latter in both of these respects, and that the [...] of Orpheus is exactly the same with what other Authors call the [...], may be proved by comparing this Orphaick fragment, with another of Aristophanes, part of which hath been already produced, where having first said that [...] or Love in conjunction with Chaos, produced the race of Mankind and first brought it to light, he then goes on to say further, that there were no Gods neither, that is, no Aetherial or Aerial Animated and intelligent concretions, till the same Love, by which we are to understand, though Aristophanes himself does not seem to have done it, the Supream Numen, or Ʋniversal Mind endued with infinite goodness as [Page] well as power, produced and begat them out of the same Chaos,
[...].
[...],
[...].
And whereas, I have said above that Aristophanes makes all these words, [...] and [...] and [...] to be in a manner Synonymous to one another, it is as much as the thing will bear, or rather I find my self obliged to retract that opinion, because in the words immediately following he makes [...] or Love, though very absurdly, being as it is, a principle of understanding and goodness, to have been the offspring of [...] and Erebus, and that by this the separation of the Heterogeneous parts of the Universe was made, which turns exactly to the same account, with what hath been above produced out of Hesiod and Tully, which showes plainly, notwithstanding that the Ancient Greeks were beholden for all these things to the East, their very [...] or Love, being nothing else but a Translation of the Hebrew Rouach with its Epithet Merachepheth [Page] in the Writings of Moses, as well as their Chaos, their Erebus, and their Nox, have been all of them shown to be owing to the same fountain; yet that they did not understand their own Traditions, and were ignorant from whence they had them.
Furthermore, Ovid likewise as well as Epicharmus affirms Chaos to have been the Ancientest and First of all the Gods, where speaking of Janus, whom in the foregoing Treatise, I have shewn to be the same with Time, which is measured by certain shanoth or reiterated and repeated Periods of duration, Janus thus speaks concerning himself, Fast. l. 1.
And if he be the Ancientest of all the Gods, as time is coextended to Eternity it self, then it follows plainly according to the sense of the Ancients, who confounded time, and the Chaos, whose duration was measured by it, together, that all other things whether Gods or Men, or of what other sort or kind soever, must have a dependance upon him as their first cause and [Page] principle of existence, so that it is no wonder to hear the same Ovid soon after ascribing omnipotence to his Chaos or Janus, for this is one sense of his words,
And again a little after that,
Praesideo foribus caeli cum mitibus horis Et redit officio Jupiter itque meo.
Though I confess there is also another sense of these words; in the former distich, that, time is the measure of all things as to their duration, and in what sense they may be said to be shut and opened by him shall be hereafter explained. In the Second, that time is measured and distinguished by certain seasons silently and insensibly gliding away,
And that Jupiter or the Sun by whom these seasons are distinguished, is the Minister, and is, as it were, sent every day and hour upon the errant of time, [Page]
Which is another confirmation of what hath been already sufficiently proved, that Jupiter among the Latins, as well as [...] among the Greeks, was frequently taken for the body of the Sun.
To conclude this discourse concerning some of the Ancients making Chaos to have been the first source and Origin of all things; notwithstanding the great similitude or rather sameness of sound, between the Hebrew Hereb and the Greek Erebus, yet when we consider that [...] in these Authors signified the most perfect, the most black, and pitchy Darkness, whence it had the Epithet of [...] assigned by them as [...] is for the same reason called [...] or black, whereas Hereb signifies rather the Twilight or crepusculum than the Night, which is most properly in Hebrew called Lajelah; this might be enough to shake the solidity of this Etymon, not withstandit hath been so generally received by Learned Men, especially when we consider that when the Passover is commanded to be Killed ben haharbaim between the Two Evenings, one of those Evenings begins immediately after Twelve a Clock, upon [Page] the first declension of the Sun towards the Horizon, and the other at Six in the Afternoon, which, at sometimes of the Year especially, is sufficiently light; were it not in behalf of this Etymon to be considered, First, That though Hereb do sometimes signifie the first declension of the Sun, and the first approach of that which we are used to call the Evening, yet that sometimes Hereb was taken for the whole Night, appears by the general division of the whole [...] in Genesis into Hereb and Boker, the Evening and the Morning, which are said to have been the First, the Second and the Third Day, and so on, by which it is manifest, that as by Boker or Morning in this division of the Day, we are to understand all the time of the Suns continuance above the Horizon, so by the Hereb or Evening, the whole time of his continuance under it, is to be understood; and this appears further by the Name of Horeb derived from it, by which word the Hebrews are used to signifie a Crow from its blackness, and from hence perhaps is the Latin orbus, and orbo, and orbitas, because persons in this circumstance and condition were used to put on Mourning or Black, though the Romans did not attend to any such Etymology.
But admitting that Hereb does indeed signifie not the pich Darkness, but the doubtful crepusculum, or the glimmering Twilight, yet this will well enough comport with the true and genuin notion of Erebus, though the Greeks and Latins did not understand it, for in the Chaos the Aetherial and Volatil and the more gross and heavy parts lay mixt and jumbled in great confusion and disorder together, which Volatil parts neither were, nor could be so wholly separated and disjoyned from each other, but that getting sometimes together, as it happened, by rash and uncertain motions, and in uncertain quantities and proportions, they did all on their parts, which was requisite to produce that, which we call a Twilight, had there been then any Animal in being, or any Eye rightly Organized and prepared to discern it, or to be duly moved and affected by it, but it was such a Twilight as by the uncertain motion of the other fluid matter of a more gross and faeculent consistence, would ever and anon be extinguisht and opprest, and by as uncertain causes revive and blaze out again, like a Candle just upon the point of going out in the Socket, which is in a manner extinguisht, and then of a sudden recruits, and shines out again with a fresh and Strugling [Page] Light, according as the Tallow ascending too powerfully into the Wick, is too hard for the Aetherial matter, or as that Aetherial matter very nigh extinguisht and expelled, returns with new force, and by attenuating and rarifying that Floud of moysture, turns it into nourishment and fewel for the Flame, instead of destroying and oppressing it, as before—
At other times those Ancient Writers assigned the Original of all things, as well Gods, as Men, and all other Animated concretions and substances whatever, not to the Chaos at large, but to the Moist and Watery part of it, as the Scripture makes the first separation of the disordered and confused parts of the Mass, and the first vital impressions communicated to the matter, to have happened from the Spirit v. Intell. Syst. p. 123, 124. of Gods moving upon the face of the Waters, whence Thales, and after him Anaxagoras derived their opinion, who affirmed the first principle of all things to have been Water, Animated and Enlivened by a Mind or Soul, running through and coextended to it, and to this we must refer that Verse of Homer, which hath been already produced,
[Page] Upon which place the Scholiast makes this observation, that by [...], we must understand [...], the Father of the Gods. [...]. because some Physiologers have represented Water as the First Element, from which the other Three were derived, whence Pindar said, [...], that Water was the best, as being the First of all things. This was the true reason why Venus, who is by the Greeks upon that account called [...] was supposed to be born of the Spume of the Sea, for by Venus nothing else was meant but the prolifick Life and Power of the Universe, which by these Antient Physiologers was supposed to arise out of the Watery substance or the Fluid matter, which they looked upon to be the first source and principle of Generation and Vegetation in the World, and so also Priapus whose excessive great Pudendum was but an Emblem of the plastick Virtue, or Generative power of Nature, was not only worshipped in Fields and Gardens, (whence I have conjectured his Etymology to be pri ab, the Father of Fruits, as all the productions of Nature may in some sense be called, which I take to be much more Natural than those Etymologies [Page] which the Scholiast upon Theocritus hath presented us withal, [...]. both which are manifestly very frigid and farfecht Interpretations) but also in Ports and by the Sea side, whence by the Greek Epigrammatists he had the Epithets given him, of [...], and [...], and v. Dempster in Rosin. l. 2. c. 20. ut & Voss. de Idolol. l. 2. c. 7. Nat. Com. l. 5. c. 20. p. 521. fuit Portus Priapi nomine propè Dardaniam, & urbs ad mare sita, quibus in locis eximiè Priapus celebratur. [...], and [...], and the like, examples of which have been collected out of the Anthology by Dempster upon Rosinus, which was but another Hieroglyphick adumbration of this Ancient Tradition, that all things did at first arise and spring from the Water.
Further yet, Venus, who at some times was said to be born out of the Water, and for that reason was called [...], was at others affirmed to have been born at Cyprus, and from thence had the Epithet of [...], as Jupiter was fabled to be born at Crete, and Apollo at Delos, all Three of them Islands encompassed by, and as it were, rising out of the Water, which was but another Emblematical representation of the same thing that Venus [Page] or the prolifick Nature, was born of the Moist and Watery Substance, or that all things sprang from thence, and that Apollo and Jupiter, by both of which the Sun is understood, or the Aetherial matter of the Heavens, were made what they are, by the separation of those subtle particles, of which they consist, from the Moist and Watery Substance of the Abyss or Chaos, which was overwhelmed with Waters; and for the same reason Priapus whom I have affirmed to be another Emblem of the Prolifick power of Nature, (and thence it was that an Ass was used to be Sacrificed to him, as being furnished with Genitals of a more than ordinary size), was said to have been born at Lampsacus or Lampsacum on the bank of the Hellespont, and by the Waters side, but for Priapus being the Son of Bacchus and Venus which is another thing that Nat. Com. ubi suprà. Alii Priapum, Bachi & Veneris filium fuisse crediderunt, quia vinum propter calorem excitet libidinem.— is Fabled concerning him, nothing else is meant by it, but that Concupisence is provoked by Wine.
This notion seems somewhat to be favoured by Macrobius, though the sense of his words be not altogether the same, where speaking of Apollo and Diana, who were both of them by the Poets feigned to [Page] be born at Delos, he says, proptereà in insulâ Macrob. Saturn. l. 1. c. 17. dicuntur nati, quod ex mari nobis oriri videntur, that is, Apollo and Diana, or the Sun and Moon, are therefore said to have been born in an Island, because they seem, to sense, to rise out of the Sea, but as for what follows, though it be ingenious, Macrob. ubi suprà. yet I cannot altogether acquiesce in it, Haec insula ideo Delos vocatur, quia ortus & quasi partus luminum omnia facit [...], id est, aperta, clarescere; much less can Lloyd. Lex. Georg. & Poet. p. 354. 2. in voce. I satisfie my self with the reason given by others, that Delos was, Sic dicta [...], quod cùm antà mari tecta esset, Latonae locum ad pariendum quaerenti, repentè se ostenderit, nor with Bochartus his account neither, who would have it be from the Syriack, Dachal, Timor, for this far fetcht reason because there is a Poet that tells us, though that Poet himself or at least the person whom he represents were mightily mistaken, that
But the true meaning of Delos is this, Delos is truly and properly the Sun it self, for this is properly the signification of [...] and [...] in Greek, it is titio, torris, lampas, to which sort of things the Sun and Moon, by reason of their bright and [Page] shining Nature, were Anciently compared, and like to this it is, that the Sun, Moon, and Stars in the first of Genesis are called Meoroth, Luminaria, or Lucernae, Lights or Lamps, as the same word is plainly used Exod. 25. 6. and c. 35. 8. they being compared metaphorically to Candles or Lamps, because of their shining and enlightning Nature, and from hence it was that the Vrim which seems to have been nothing else but a certain light shining and displaying it self upon certain emergent occasions on the Brestplate of the High Priest, is by the Seventy rendered by [...], as much as to say, Luminaria, Num. 27. 21. and 1 Sam. 28. 6. which thing being seriously considered and reflected upon, will confirm what I have said concerning Vulcan, that his true Etymology is as much as El Kanna or Deus Zelotypus, because of the Metaphorical likeness and resemblance betwixt Fire and Jealousie or Indignation, for so it is also in Greek, [...] and [...] or [...] are the same, as what the common Greek calls [...], that in the Aeolian dialect is [...], and the common [...] is the Aeolique [...], and Priscian v. Voss. de permut. lit. sub literâ Z. saith that Mezentius was by the Ancient Latins called Medentius, and the same may be seen likewise in the formation of tenses [Page] out of one into another, as from [...] is [...], and [...], from whence are the Nouns [...], and [...], and [...], and from [...] is [...] and the Latin Odor, and Lastly that the Zeta does manifestly and undenyably contain in it the potestas of Delta or d, which makes them the more easily convertible into each other, may be seen in all those permutations in the several dialects, wherein, besides what hath been already represented, it is sometimes changed into dd, sometimes into ds, and at others into sd, instances of which as they are obvious to all that have been conversant in the Greek Poets, so there are many of them collected ready at hand by Vossius in his little but excellent Tract De Permutatione Literarum.
To this purpose it is, that not only in Scripture, but even in Profane Greek Authors Jealousie and Fire are compared together, and Plato gives [...] the Epithet Plat. in Leg. of [...], Jealousie or Indignation burning like Fire, or that breaths and belches it out, and Plutarch hath such an expression Plut. in Antonio. as [...], for the vehement, or excandescent state of a Glowing Fire.
This notion that Delos is nothing else in its first and most proper signification but a name of the Sun, though afterwards [Page 229] it came also to signifie the Island where he N. C. Mythol. l. 5. c. 20. p. 521. was worshipped, as Natalis Comes observes a Port and a City to have been called Priapus, because Priapus was worshipped in them, will be still more clear by considering two things: First, That Delos was Antiently and Primitively represented as a Floating Island, which is plainly the case of the Sun and Moon, which to sight are as two Floating Islands or Homogeneous, Tracts and Continents of Light and Fire, swimming as it were in the Ocean of the Aether; and whereas, after the Birth of Apollo and Diana, the Island of Delos, the Terrestrial one, I mean, in the Aegean Sea, is said to have rested, whereas before it floated to and fro: This may possibly have depended either, First, upon a corruption of the Antient Tradition; for in the beginning of Things, the whole Mass of Earth may be said to have been as it were one Floating Island, swimming in the Waters, and scarce emerging out of them, which when the Sun and Moon and other Stars were created, that is, when the Aetherial Parts were separated from the more Gross and Heavy, and when the Watery were derived into their proper Cavities, Receptacles and Channels, and the Moisture of the Earth began to be dryed up by the [Page 230] warmth and influence of the Sun, did now begin to cease floating and poaching any longer, and was, as we call it, terrafirma, firm and useful Land, and considering the Sun as the Supream Numen, as the most Ancient Idolaters unquestionably did, the whole Earth is his Delos, or his Temple where he is Worshipped, an Island standing in the fluid Aether, to outward sense and vulgar opinion immoveable, though in reality, if we give credit to the best Astronomers, still floating as before, though not by such slippery and uncertain motions; Or else it happened thus: [...], as I have said, was an ancient Name of the Sun, being no other, as I conceive, than a Greek corruption of the Hebrew El, from whence is the Greek [...], and thence every thing that was either Fire or Light, or had a Metaphorical Resemblance to them, was called by the Names of [...] and [...] and [...], but this Name in process of Time being lost among the Greeks, only remaining still in the Name of this Island, which had been given it from the Worship of Delus or the Sun, it so happened by the mistake and ignorance of the Greeks, that what was attributed in the Cabbalistical and Arcane Language of Antiquity to their Delus or the Sun, viz, that he was as a
A second Consideration, by which this notion of the word [...], that it Anciently, or at least in a Cabalistical and Hieroglyphic way, signified the Sun, may be confirmed, is this, That in those Sacra or Ceremonies or Religious Rites which were instituted in honor of Minerva, Vulcan, and Prometheus, there were among other things, the [...] or the [...], that is, Religious Votaries, running with Flambeaus or Torches in their Hands. So Natalis Comes observes out of Pausanias N. C. Mythol. l. 4. c. 6. p. 314, 315. concerning Prometheus, Scriptum est à Pausa [...]iâ in Atticis non solum aram illi (Promethei) fuisse erectam in Academiâ, sed etiam Lampadipherorum cursùs certamen inde incepisse, qui in urbem accensas faces decurrentes deferebant, in quo certamine studebant ut accensae faces servarentur, nam cujus fax extincta fuisset, is victoriam succedenti concedebat, atque hic eodem modo sequenti, si sua extingueretur, & reliqui eodem ordine, quod si nemo accensam facem, tulisset, palma in medio relinquebatur, atque [Page 232] haec fiebant in honorem Promethei, quod is omnium artium fontem & autorem ignem putabatur invenisse, &c. And a little after what he here attributes peculiarly to Prometheus, he ascribes in common with him to Minerva and Vulcan likewise, where he puts this Question, Quid vero significant Ib. p. 323. Lampadophoria, quae in honorem Minervae, Vulcanique, & Promethei celebrabantur, in quibus cursores accensis facibus currebant? Which he thus resolves into a Moral meaning, Nihil aliud sanè quàm universum praesentis vitae cursum esse nobis molestiarum atque curarum plenum, quae ubi cessaverint, à cùrsu ipsius vitae cessandum est, & succedentibus lampades, lites, morbi, calamitates, animorumque sollicitudines in manus tradendae; atque, ut summatim colligam significare voluerunt per haec sapientes maximam esse vitae praesentis perturbationem, avaritiam cuncta recta subvertere: viris bonis esse semper adversus difficultates pugnandum, omnem mortalium vitam esse curarum plenam, neque ulli sperandam esse quietem dum vivimus. Where, though I will not deny that this Ceremony among the Ancients was significative of the Succession of the Human, or in general of the Animal Life, or of the departure of one Generation to make way for another; the Lamps being so [Page 233] many Emblems of the flamma vitalis, and their successive extinction of the frailty and short duration of this mortal Life, as is sufficiently evident from the allusion of Lucretius, which had a respect to this Rite among the Ancients.
Yet as for the account which our Mythologist here gives, that it was an Emblem of the trouble and vexation to which Human Life is exposed; I can by no means bring my self to think that this is a kindly and natural Interpretation; and then when it is said, that this Ceremony was performed in honor of Vulcan, Minerva, and Prometheus, certainly there must something more lie hid under this, which neither he nor I have yet explained, and it was this, That as the successive extinction of the Lamps and Torches, did signifie the successive Courses and stated Periods of Life, which are extinguish'd at a certain time, and as it were rekindled and renewed by an everlasting Course of Generation, so that these Lights and Torches were kindled and lighted up in Honor of these supposedly divine Persons; it had this signification, that all kind of Animal Vitality [Page 234] here below, was in the Opinion of those Times and Places where this custom was used, nothing but a ray of Heavenly Light or Aetherial Influence from above. For Minerva, as I have said and proved already, and shall do still further by and by, is nothing else but the Aetherial Matter, and Vulcan and Prometheus were but two Names of the Sun, which is sometimes represented as the Shield of Minerva, being exactly of the same sort of fluid and Aetherial Substance, only differing in greater degrees of Purity and Tenuity, and in greater swiftness, agitation and motion from the common Aether; so that those Torches had a twofold respect, the First lookt downwards upon the Animal World, whose short continuance upon the Stage of Life, was signified by their swift Motion and successive Extinction in the hands of the Cursores that held them; the other upwards, towards the Aetherial Matter, and more particularly towards the Sun himself, the Father and Fountain of Light, and, as it was then believed, of all kind of Vitality, all Sense and Life, which was looked upon as it were, but as so many temporary Candles, enlightned and set a burning for a while by the everlasting Lamp of Heaven, the Sun, and propagated successively by the means of [Page 235] Generation, as Candles and Torches upon the point of being extinguish'd, may yet give new Light to others like themselves, that shall burn for another such Period or interval of Time, as they themselves had lasted; and if these Torches in this Hieroglyphic Pageantry of the Ancients, did signifie and represent the Sun, why then might not [...], or [...], which is the proper word, to signifie such a Flambeau or Torch in the Arcane usage of Hieroglyphic Speech, equally denote and signifie the same?
From this that hath been observed concerning the Lampadophoria, that they were Celebrated equally in honor of Pallas, Vulcan, and Prometheus, compared with the explication of those Names which hath been already given; we may be still further convinced that Prometheus and Vulcan are the same with the Sun, and by consequence with one another. Which is still further confirmed from what the Scholiast upon Sophocles reports, That they had all Three of them one common Altar in the Temple of Pallas at Athens, as I find it taken notice out of him, First by N. Comes, and after him by our Learned Countryman Doctor Gale, in his Notes upon Apollodorus, and this certainly is a shrew'd Argument, [Page 236] that they are all of them either exactly the same, or at least very nearly related to one another; the first of which is the case of Prometheus and Vulcan, with relation to one another; the other of Pallas, with respect to the other Two.
Furthermore, It is observable to this purpose, Apollod. Biblioth. l. 1. c. 3. p 10. what Apollodorus reports, that when Jupiters Head was in Labor with Minerva, Vulcan, as some say, and as others, Prometheus cleft it with an Ax or Hatchet, by that means to facilitate and expedite the Birth, (Such another Error as this it seems to have been, by which Pallas and Minerva have been by some Authors, and particularly by Apollodorus himself, distinguisht from one another, though they are really and in truth the same. v. Apollod. Bibl. l. 3. & N. Com. Mythol. l. 4. c. 5. p. 296.— which difference of report in divers and disagreeing Authors arose only from this, that they did not understand Prometheus and Vulcan to be the same; and this was the reason that Lysimachides, an Ancient Greek Writer, cited by Natalis Comes, makes Prometheus to have been Senior to Vulcan, not understanding what I have endeavoured to prove, that they were indeed the same; nor considering, that notwithstanding the sameness of the Persons, yet as to the Names by which this Indentity was differently exprest, Vulcan as being the Eastern Name, was much the Senior to Prometheus.
Now the true explication of this Fable in Apollodorus, that Vulcan or Prometheus cleft the Head of Jupiter, to make a more easie passage for the Birth of Pallas, is this, Jupiter in this case is the whole Aether, whose Head is the Body of the Sun, whose Rayes are here compared to Axes or Hatchets, by which the Aether is pierced and cleft, as to our outward sense it seems to be; and that from this cleaving, Pallas was born, the meaning is no other than this, that the Sun or the Rayes of the Sun, do at least enliven and invigorate, if not create and cause that agility and motion, which is to be found in Pallas or Jupiter; or the wide, spacious Aether, whose Parts all about, though they are of a finer consistence and more agil Nature, than those of which this Earth and its Atmosphere is composed, yet they themselves, as they are nearer to the Sun, or at a farther distance from it, so they partake more or less of that Influence, that Warmth and Heat, and briskness of Activity and Motion, which is communicated and imparted by him, as may be seen by that part of the Aether, which being mingled and interspersed with this Atmosphere which we inhabit, is in the Winter comparatively stagnant, to what it is found by Experience to [Page 238] be in the Summer season, when the Sun shines upon us with a directer Influence, and with Rayes more piercing and vigorous than at other times.
Lastly, This was the reason, why, when other of the Poets make the first Man to have been formed out of the Earth by Prometheus, Hesiod ascribes the same effect to Vulcan, because they are indeed both of them the same, the same with the Sun, and with one another; the words of Hesiod in his [...] are,
[...].
Which Grotius hath thus Translated.
Mulciberumque moras Jubet omnes solvere & undas.
Commiscere solo, atque humanam imponere vocem.
Though this indeed be spoken of Hesiod, not of the makeing or animating Mankind by Prometheus, but of the forming of Pandora by Vulcan, which Pandora is nothing else but a Mythological Emblem of our First Parent Eve, or of the mischiefs that are [Page 239] brought upon Mankind by the Charms and Enticements of Women, and her being Grot. de. v. R. G. l. 1. p. 63. ed. Amstel. 1674. form'd out of Earth and Water by Prometheus, and that animated with Celestial Fire, shews that Vulcan and Prometheus are the same, though in this Story of Hesiod they are Mythologically oppos'd to one another.
And particularly as to Prometheus himself, and what hath been said above concerning him, as to the gnawing Vultur or Eagle perpetually preying upon his Heart or Liver, which was repaired every Night proportionably to what it was spent and wasted in the Day, which, as I have said, cannot bear any natural Interpretation, than only by explaining it of the diurnal course and motion of the Sun; this Story is related, and with the same circumstance that Hesiod and Petronius above v. Phavor. in [...] & Apollod. l. 1. c. 7. p. 22. alledged have done it, of the Nightly renewal of the consumed Heart or Liver, by Pherecydes in Phavorinus, and by Apollodorus in his Bibliotheca.
I cannot forbear upon this occasion to confirm likewise another Notion, though of the same nature with this, which in what hath been said above, I have endeavored to establish, viz. That the Ancient Orpheus was the same with the Sun, by a [Page 240] place of Lactantius, never yet taken notice of that I know of, to this purpose,—where speaking of the Angels and Ministring Spirits, which are employed upon several occasions by the Supream and Governing Mind of the Universe, an Opinion which not only Judaism and Christianity, but also the Ancient Heathen Philosophy and Theology hath favored, he saith, Si eos (Gentiles,) multitudo delectat, non duodecim dicimus, nec trecentos Sexaginta quinque, ut Orpheus, sed innumerabiles, & arguimus eorum errores in diversnm, qui tam paucos putant. The reason of which division of their Angels or Ministring Spirits among the Pagans, sometimes into Twelve, and at others Three hundred sixty five, was this, That the Sun was looked upon by them as the Supream Numen, and his annual Motion through the Zodiac, is either divided into Twelve Parts or Sections, which we call Months, over every one of which a particular Tutelar Genius or Subministring Spirit was supposed to preside, or else into Three hundred sixty five, which are called Days, which space of Time being spent by the Sun in his motion; his annual Period is compleat, and he returns again to the same point of the Zodiac from whence he set out so long ago, and every one of [Page 241] these Days too, which are all of them owing to the influence of the Sun, and are measured by his motion, for Dies is [...], had likewise in the opinion of some of the Ancients a particular Genius or Tutelar and Guardian Spirit presiding over it, and performing such Offices as the great Author and Finisher of the Day, thought it fit and necessary to appoint; but when this Opinion is ascribed by Lactantius to Orpheus as the Author, I rather think him to have been the Subject of it, and that the geniun Tradition was this, That Orpheus, that is, the Sun, was looked upon by the Ancients, as having Three hundred and sixty five Ministring Spirits about him, according to the number of the Days of the Year, both because this Opinion which depended upon the proneness of Antiquity to Superstition, who never thought they had Gods and Demons enough, do's not seem to have been so particular as Lactantius makes it, and because Orpheus was certainly a name of the Sun, as I have proved already; and this corrupted Tradition in Lactantius seems to have been another instance of it, and because Censorinus observes the Ancient Aegyptian or Eastern solar Year to have consisted of Three hundred sixty five Days without any intercalation, [Page 242] which is the number here assigned.
To put an end to this Discourse concerning the Ocean or the Water, being the first Cause and Principle of all things, as well Gods as Men, and all other whether animate or inanimate corporeal Substances whatsoever, by this was meant as I conceive first of all, not so much that common Water, such as we are used to call by that Name, was really and solely the first Cause and Principle of all things, but only as Plato expresses it in his Theaetaetus, [...], that all things were begotten by fluidity and motion, that is, according to the present Sentiments of the Corpuscularians, that all the several Differences, Qualities, Appearances, and various Modifications to be met with in the material World, were but the effects of Motion or Fluidity, variously proportion'd order'd and disposed; for this is the true and first meaning of [...], it is the fluid Matter from [...], signifying volatil, or swift, and from the same Greek word is the Latin Aqua and Aquila, so called from the swiftness of its Flight and Motion, and Aquilo for the Northwind, for the same reason, which is called in Greek [...], answering exactly to, or rather being exactly the same with the Hebrew Boreach, [Page 243] from Barach, Fugit, as Daniel Heinsius in his Aristarchus hath before me observed. And from the same Greek Root is also the Latin Acus, and Acuo, and Acies, because things that are sharp and have an Edge pass with more ease and swiftness, and cut their way with greater speed and dispatch through all obstacles and impediments that they meet with, and thence Acies in the Metaphorical Sense, signifies sharpness or quickness, or subtlety and minute perspicacity of sight, because they whose Eyes are thus happily disposed, do easily, and clearly, and swiftly, or quickly discern things that are removed at a great distance from them, and for the same reason it signifies also the disposition and order of an Army drawn up in Battalia, that is, first and most properly, as I conceive, the Cuneus or the Phalanx, where the whole Body is terminated on all sides by an Angle or an Edge; and so also Acumen has not only its proper and first Sense, to signifie a material Edge or sharpness, but also its Metaphorical or Derivative, to denote the intellectual quickness or sharpness of the Mind, by which it do's, as it were, cut its way through the greatest difficulties and abstrucsities of Nature, and overtake by a swift, an easie, and a steady slight, those Things and Notions that [Page 244] are the most coy and loath to be discovered, or that escape and baffle the pursuit of common Apprehensions by too great distance or too nimble flight. Lastly, To shew the Analogy of the word, [...] in this sense, which I have explained it, [...] by the same way of derivation is from [...] or [...], as much as to say the Region of Rain, whence also Orion was feighned to have his Name, as being the cause of Tempests, and particularly of great Flouds and Inundations, which by the Poets was variously signified under the covert of Fables; and thence also the [...] in Julius Pollux are the same with what Physicians and Anatomists otherwise call [...], and [...] and [...], and this Etymology, to any Man that shall consider it, is certainly preferrable to any other that hath hitherto been started, as may be seen by comparing the Etymologies of St. Ambrose, Aristotle, and Philo, which may be found in any Lexicon, together with this; not that I would confine the signification of the word [...] to the Region of the Atmosphere, within which compass the Clouds and Rain are contained, but it is enough that the most remote Antiquity looked upon the Clouds, as at a far greater distance than we do; and therefore the [Page 245] Psalmist makes the Clouds to be, as it were, the more peculiar and Beatifical Seat of him who is Omnipresent, which is otherwise usually confined to the highest and most exalted Regions of the Aether, when he affirms of God, as he do's sometimes, that he maketh the Clouds his Chariot, and that he rideth upon the Wings of the Wind, or else it might happen that the whole Aether might be call'd by the Name of [...], because the Ancient Mortals that first call'd it by this Name, did not understand the Philosophy of Exhalations, but thought all Rain was dispensed from the Treasury of Waters above the Firmament, as it is called in the First of Genesis, not according to the truth and reality of Things, but according to vulgar Opinion, with which the Language of the Scripture, though of divine Inspiration, do's not disdain sometimes in pity to human Infirmity to comply, as where it intimates the Earth to stand still, the Moon to be a great Light, and the [...]ixt Stars comparatively little; but if we Translate the Hebrew Rakiah, not by Firmamentum, as the vulgar Latin hath done, by a false Translation of the Greek [...], which is as much as [...], or the Region of the Stars, but only by expansum, a seeming empty space, in which we [Page 246] walk and breath in this sublunary Region, it will not imply that there is indeed any such celestial Treasury of Water beyond the Atmosphere or the Region of the Clouds.
This Notion of Thetis being nothing else but the Tohu or Ʋniversal Mass, besides what hath been already produced to that purpose, will receive further confirmation, by reflecting a little upon the meaning and derivation of these three words, [...], Titan, and Tithonus: I begin with the First, [...] from [...], a word which occurs in Homer Il. [...]. 747.
[...], where the Old Scholiast interprets [...], so also Eustathius upon the same place, [...], that is, that by [...], we are to understand a certain sort of Oyster, for [...] signifies the Earth, and Shell Fish, by reason of the hardness of that Shell wherewith they are incompassed, are of a more earthy Nature, than any other sort of Fish a, a, a, so Suidas expresly interprets it, [...]. whatsoever; but it had been better to derive it from (a) [...] in its double capacity, as it signifies both (a) Earth and (a) Water, because, by reason of the hardness of their Shell, and the softness or fluidity of their [Page 247] inward Pulp and Substance, and of their living in, and being nourish'd by the Water; they are of a middle Nature betwixt these two, which was the Case of the Tohu or Primigenial Mass, called by Hesychius with a very little alteration [...], for so he expounds [...], that is, [...], signifies a sort of Oyster or Shell Fish, and it is also the Slime or Dirt which Rivers in their Course throw off upon their Banks, which is as exactly as can be the signification of the Hebrew Tohu, which was a thin substance of Earth and Water together; and this is a further confirmation, that by Tethys in the Mythology of the Ancients, the Ʋniversal or Primigenial Mass was denoted, and likewise explains the reason of those Expositions which we find in Suidas; [...], and presently after, [...], they taking their signification from the Tohu or Primigenial Mass, which was the Mother, or Grandmother, and First Parent of all Things, and an Aunt is so like a Mother, so nearly related by Blood, and usually by Affection, and by all Offices of Parental kindness, that it is no wonder to find [...] and [...] so very little different in their Signification; and the same may be said of [...] and [...], which are all of [Page 248] them owing to the same Root, the Earth or Globe of Earth and Water, in which all sublunary Animals are bred and nourish'd being truly stiled the Nurse, as well as Parent of all her productions, and the Analogy of Tithene, comes nigh to that of Tithonus, of which I shall speak in the third place.
But Secondly, The word Titan also being from the same Root of Thoth, or Tohu, is another confirmation of the truth of what I have said concerning Thetis, that by her was signified the Tohu, or the Ʋniversal and Primigenial Mass, for all these Names being probably derived from the same Root, and answering so well as they do in their History to the same Etymology, give natural strength and confirmation to each other. Titan signifies properly a Son of the Earth, or of the Tohu, and so the Sun is called in the first place, according to that of Ovid in his Metamorphoses.
And in Juvenal, Prometheus whom I have more than once affirmed to be the same with the Sun, is called by this Name, [Page 249]
And so also in Sophocles, out of whom this citation is produced by N. Comes, N. C. Myth. L. 2. c. 4. p. 150. though he do's not make this use of it.
And not only the Sun was called Titan, but the Stars likewise by the Latin Poets are sometimes called Astra Titania, as in that of Virgil in the sixth of his Ae [...]eid.
The reason of which was either that the fluid Matter of the Aether, of which the Sun and Stars consist, was once jumbled together with the rest of the Chaos, and was separated from it, which was, as it were, its Birth out of the Womb of [Page 250] the Chaos, or the Tohu, or else that they seem all of them, as often as they Emerge above our Horizon, to rise out of the Earth or Sea, as if they sprang from thence as Flowers do out of a Bed, or from their several Principles and Seeds, and as often as they set and were submerst again under it; this was looked upon by the Ancients as their return to their Mother, (there being according to them but one enlightned Hemisphere, as hath been already declared,) to suck her Breasts of Consolation, and to refresh and cool themselves in the Bath of the Ocean, after the Fatigue of a long and toilsom Journey.
Neither can there be any other reason but this assigned, why the Earth should be called [...] by the Greek Poets, as well as the Sun was called Titan, and the Stars Titania; for certainly the Sun, and Stars, and the Earth, any otherwise than some such way as this, are not any whit of kin to one another, and yet this is the Name of the Earth in the Etymologer, who hath these remarkable words, [...], that is, that some called the whole Earth by this Name, and some only the single Province of Attica, both of which were in the right, for the whole Mass of Earth, and Water, and Aether, [Page 251] mingled together, was called Thoth or Tohu, and this was the true Name of [...], that is, not the single Province of Attica, as the Etymologer himself understood his own words, but the Ancient Earth or Primigenial Mass, which was the Cabbalistical or Traditionary signification of Attica and Attici, as hath been already frequently declared, though the latter Greeks themselves did not understand it. [...], when it is the Epithet of [...] or the Earth, either signifies, that the Earth was a part of the Tohu or Ʋniversal Mass, as indeed it is the most confused and Heterogeneous part of it, Tohu and Bohu being Names in Hebrew, that seem to signifie disorder and confusion, or that the Earth was the Mother of the Titans, which is the same thing; by the [...] nothing else being meant, but those Winds and Vapours which are exhaled from the Earth, or the Tohu, or being kept up and pent in subterraneous Caverns, are the natural causes of Earthquakes, and Volcano's, and such like Eruptions of subterraneous Vapours; so the word is explained by Eustathius upon Homer, with whom the Author of the Allegories upon Hesiod agrees, Alleg. in Hesiod. p. 244. Ed. Heins. in these words, [...] [Page 252] [...], that is, they are called Titans, for as much as they dispense and are the Authors and Occasions of Damage and Detriment to Men; for by Earthquakes Houses are overturned, and the Earth is broken up or cleft in sunder, and Men are overwhelmed and immerst in Waters, and many other Calamities there are that happen upon the same account; and as I have said formerly of Juno, that the reason of the many Quarrels that happen between her and Jupiter in the Poets, is to be taken without all question, from the Phisiology or natural Philosophy of the Ancients, Juno being the Air or Atmosphere, or the Region of Storms and Tempests, by which Jupiter or the pure Aether is troubled and disturbed; the same is true likewise of the Wars betwixt the Titans or the Giants, that is, the [...], the Sons of the Earth and the Gods, for by the Gods was meant, as hath been already observed from Plato and Macrobius, the Sun and Stars, the pure Aether, and all sorts of Aetherial Concretions, which Aether by the Titans, that is, by Storms and Tempests, is, as it were, assaulted and invaded, and a War seems to be threatned against the Sun and the Stars themselves, to which purpose it is remarkable what the Etymologer saith, [Page 253] in the words immediately following those I have last produced out of him. I will repeat those words again, that you may see the connexion: [...], that is, that the Earth was called [...] from Titanus, one of the Titans, who of all the number was the only Person that did not make War against the Gods; which, though it be plainly false and clean contrary to the truth, yet by what we may learn from this place, what I have said already may be confirmed: It is false that the Earth was called [...] from Titanus, for by Titanus or Titan, as hath been shewed already, was meant the Sun, and he was so called from the Tohu, or the Earth, not the Earth so called from him, the reason of which hath been already explained; and whereas, I have said, that the Earth in a Mythological way, may be said so often to be the Mother of Titan, or the Sun, as often as he Emerges above the sensible Horizon, and seems as it were, to be renewed and born again; this seems to be confirmed by a Passage of Aeschylus concerning Prometheus, who is the Eschyl. ed. Stanl. p. 26. same with Titan or the Sun; in his Prometheus Vinctus, which I will here produce, it is Prometheus himself that speaks, [Page 254]
Which is thus rendred by the Learned Interpreter.
Sed mihi mater, non semel tantum, Themis,
Quae & terra (multarum appellationum una forma.)
Ʋt res eventura esset, praedixerat.
Where if we refer [...], non semel tantum, to [...] or Mater, the sense is according to what I have said, that Prometheus or Titan was born of the Earth more than once, and so he must needs, if he be born every day; but if we refer those words to [...], or praedixerat, then it bears clear another sense, which I need not explain; and to any Man that understands the Greek Language, and considers the order of the words, both these Interpretations are so natural, that I know not which to prefer, only [...], being nigher in place to [...], then to [...], this if any thing, may seem to favor the former Interpretation, for, I confess, to me, the [Page 255] Construction seems equally natural both ways, and therefore I shall determin for neither.
But there is one thing somewhat strange in this place of Aeschylus, which I cannot pass by without some notice, and that is, that he calls the Earth by the Name of Themis.
For they interpret that [...], as if it had been said, [...], and so our Learned Stanly Translates it, Quae & terra, and so the Scholiast [...], my Mother is equally called [...] and [...], and it is a sign it is really so, because of the singular Verb, [...], which belongs to them both, and should have been put in the plural Number, had these two been several and distinct from one another, besides that [...], is a Parenthesis that would in this place be impertinent, and would signifie just nothing; upon supposition that these two, the Earth and Themis were not the fame, and were not intended by these very words to be declared as such. Lastly, This is put out of all doubt by a place of John [Page 256] Tzetzes upon Hesiod, which I will transcribe Io. Tzetzes in Hesiod. p. 26. 1. ed. Heins. hither, and it is concerning Prometheus, that he speaks, [...] (Legendum [...]) [...], &c. that is, Prometheus is either taken in a more gross and practical sense, for one that tamed and humaniz'd Men, and made them from barbarous to become courteous and civil, or else more spiritually or speculatively; Prometheus, is Human Providence and Foresight, the Son of Japetus, or inward Ratiocinatian; and of Clymene, that is, outward, sensible and practical Wisdom; for Themis or the Earth, is the Mother of the Elementary Prometheus, that is, as I conceive of Prometheus in the first sense, otherwise I know not what he means, is, though I rely not much upon his Allegorical Interpretations, having shewn, as I think, that the Physiological is more natural, and certainly the only true Interpretation of Prometheus, as hath been already largely proved, but all that I observe is, that he makes Themis and the [Page 257] Earth to have been the same, which though it startled me at first, yet now I think I have found the reason of it, and the reason is Hieroglyphical, and this it is: Tamam or Tam in Hebrew, has the signification of Ʋprightness and Integrity, and Themis among the Ancients was the Goddess or President of Iustice, of which the Earth, by reason of its antiently supposed Stability and Permanency, (while the Air, the Water, the Aether, and all the heavenly Bodies were thought to be always in perpetual motion,) was a very natural and proper Symbol; for it is the nature of Error and Falshood, which proceeds by no certain Rule, to be Fleeting and Inconstant, but Justice and Integrity are always the same, constant, and steady, and immovable, as the Foundations of the Earth were supposed to be
But to return to the Etymologist, he tells us, as hath been already observed, that the Titans were so called, [...], from Titanus, one of the Titans, who, it seems, was the only Person among them, that did not make War against the Gods, where it is ridiculous to say, that the Titans were so called from Titanus, one of the Titans; for if he himself were one of the number, and if it be asked why he was so called? All [Page 258] the reason that this place will afford, will be, that he took his Name from himself; but when he says that he was the only Person of all the Titans, that did not make War upon the Gods; from this there are two things to be observed, First, That there was such a War betwixt the Titans and the Gods, as the Poets have described; and Secondly, We have here a very broad intimation what kind of War that was; for if by Titan or Titanus, be meant the Sun, as I have already declared, then he could not be one of those Titans that were engaged in this Rebellion, because it was indeed made against himself, and against the pure Aether; and the Stars that Inhabit it by the rarified and exalted Vapours and Exhalations, which this Earth and its Atmosphaere affords, and that Titan was antiently one of the Names of the Sun: Besides the Testimonies already produced, I will here alledge a Fragment of Orpheus, produced by the Writer of the Allegories upon Hesiod, wherein Titan, Hyperion, Phosphorus, Paean and Zeus, are all of them V. Alleg. in Hesiod, in Theog. p. 268. 1. v. et H. Steph. in Thesauro L. G. Vol. 3. p. 1580. represented as one and the same.
But when the Etymologer tells us, that this Titan or Titanus was the only Person of all the Titans that did not make War upon the Gods; this is another palpable mistake of his, or of the Author, whoever he be, from whom he borrows it; for I have shewn that all the Stars, against whom this War was made, as well as against the Sun, are called actually by the Poets Astra Titania, and might as well have been called [...] or Titanes, as the Sun, for the reasons already given, and the Greek Proverb [...], and [...], which is proverbially used for sharpness of Sight, may refer as well to the Stars as the Sun, they all being supposed to have a piercing Eysight, and to discern all things that were Transacted upon Earth, though this indeed did more peculiarly and eminently belong to the Sun; and this was one reason, besides what hath been already said of the Serpents biting it self by the Tail, why the Sun was antiently Worshiped in the Form of a Serpent? Because this sort of Animals is found to be endued with so sharp, and vigorous, and piercing a Sight; and from this it was that the Greek [...], and the Latin Draco, took their Names from the Aorist of [...], signifying to see which is [...], and [Page 260] quickness of Sight is peculiarly attributed by Horace to the Epidaurian Serpent, which was the same with the Sun.
And this was the reason why the Eagle above all other Birds, was dedicated to the Honor and Service of the Sun, not only because of the swiftness and loftiness of its Flight and Motion, but also because of the extream sharpness and piercingness of its Sight.
But besides all this, not only the Sun is called Titan, and the Stars Titania, but also the Moon by Nicander, in Theriacis is called [...], in these words,
[...].—
Where [...], is rightly interpreted by the Scholiast upon the place of [...] or Diana, or the Moon, but not for the reason which the same Scholiast assigns, because [Page 261] Diana was the Daughter of Caeus, the Titan and Latona; but because all the Stars are rightly called Titans, as arising from the Tohu or the Earth, or from the Primigenial Mass, from whence they were separated and disjoyned in the beginning of Things, and assigned each of them to the several Orbs and Regions which they now inhabit; or else according to the Scholiast himself, if she be called the Daughter of Caeus the Titan and Latona, it is only for this reason, Because Caeus the Titan, was but one of the Names of the Earth, as Latona was another, though here they are put both together, as different and distinct; the Form and Fashion of the Fable requiring it, there being no Generation without a Male and a Female; and this together with that Notion which I have endeavored to establish, that the Stars were called Titans, because of their separation in the beginning of Things from the Primigenial Mass, may be excellently confirmed by a Passage of Macrobius, concerning Latona and Apollo, which is very well worth setting down. Saturnal. L. 1. c. 17. which is very well worth setting down. Latonae Apollinem Dianam (que) pariturae Juno dicitur obstetisse, sed ubi quando (que) partus effusus est, draconem ferunt, qui [...] vocitabatur, invasisse cunas Deorum; Apollinem (que) in primâ infantiâ sagittis belluam [Page 262] confecisse. Quod ità intelligendum naturalis ratio demonstrat, nam (que) post Chaos, ubi primùm cepit confusa deformitas in rerum Formas & in Elementa nitescere, terra (que) adhuc humida substantiâ molli at (que) instabili sede nutaret, convalescente paulatim aetherio calore, atque inde seminibus in eam igneis defluentibus haec sidera edita esse creduntur, & solem quidem maximâ vi caloris in superna raptum, lunam verò humidiore & velut Faemineo sexu, naturali quodam pressam tepore inferiora tenuisse; tanquam ille magis substantiâ patris constet, haec matris, siquidem Latonam Physici volunt terram videri; cui diu intervenit Juno, nè numina quae diximus ederentur; hoc est, aer qui tunc humidus adhuc gravis (que) obstabat Aetheri, nè fulgor luminum per humosi aeris densitatem, tanquam è cujusdam partûs progressione, fulgeret. And with this Notion of Latona, that nothing else was meant by her but the Earth; it agrees very well that Ovid in the Sixth of his Metamorphoses, gives her also the Epithet of Titanis, which we have seen above by the same Poet in his Fasti, to have been bestowed upon Tethys for the same reason, because Tethys and the Earth, or the Primigenial Mass, were the same. The words of Ovid are, [Page 263]
Where he makes [...] by a K, is the same with [...] by a [...] which is as much [...] or [...], the Earth See what follows presently concerning [...] and [...]. Caeus to be the Father of Latona, as others represent him as her Husband; but, as I have said, when these things are stript of their Mythological disguise, I rather conceive them both to have been the same.
Furthermore, not only the Moon is called [...], as hath been shewed by this last produced Testimony of Nicander, but also the Sun and all the Planets in common are sometimes found to be called by the same Name, as appears by a Testimony of Eusebius Euseb. praep. Evang. L. 1 [...]. in his Evangelical Preparation, which I will here set down, his words are these, [...], that is, that Cronus and Astarte had seven Daughters called Titanides or Artemides, in which citation by [...], is meant Time, according to that of Macrobius. Saturnus ipse qui Auctor est temporum, & Saturnal, L. 1. c. 22. so also Dionys, Halicarnass, Anti (que) Rom. L. 1. speaking of Saturn, says, [...] v. & Macrob. [...]bi suprà. c. 8 [...] ut & Arnob. L. 3. & Ib. Elmenhorst. p. 120. ideò à Graecis immutatâ litera [...] quasi [...] vocatur; and by Astarte, If I am not mistaken the Aetherial Region is signified, or the Body of the Aether, of whose Substance [Page 264] the Planets, whose opaque and gloomy Consistence, was not so antiently discovered and reflected upon, were thought to be composed, the Stars differing, as I have said, from the rest of the Aether, only in greater degrees of Motion and Fluidity; but yet I am not ignorant that there are other, and those very different Interpretations of Astarte: [...]. I am of Opinion that Astarte is the same with the Moon, saith Lucian in his de Deâ Syriâ, and so I conceive it is to be understood in that place of the Kings, L. 1. c. 11. v. 5. Where it is said of Solomon, that he went after Ashtoreth the Goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. For there is nothing more certain than that by Moloc and Milcom, the Sun was understood, to whom, as to the Supream Lord and Sovereign of all things, the Ancient Heathens gave the Title of King, which is the true signification of these two words, as [...] and [...], two Names of the Sun, have both of the Epithet of [...] in Homer; and therefore it is the more probable, since Moloc is so plainly the Sun, that Ashtoreth, which the seventy Interpreters in this place, have rendred by [...], is the Moon, as Lucian would have it; but it is easie to discern, [Page 265] that this Interpretation will not at all comport with this place of Eusebius, and therefore another must be sought for, and another Interpretation of Astarte, if I am not very much mistaken, is, that it signifies any Star in general, as when it is said of the Children of Israel, Iud. 2. 13. That they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth; which the seventy have rendred by [...]. Where Baal without all question is the Sun, (as also Chemosh of the Moabites was but a corruption of the Hebrew Shemesh,) he being in the Opinion of his Worshipers, the Supream Lord and Governor of all Things, and the Ashtaroth or the [...], are the Stars or the Host of Heaven. For Esther in Chalday, signifies a Star, and thence with the Addition of Shour, which signifies to contemplate; Zoroaster is supposed to have had his Name from his Study of Astronomy, or his Contemplation of the Stars; and there is no difference between these words, Esther, and Ashtoreth, or Ashtaroth, but that the first of them is written with an Aleph, the two latter with an Hajin, but the Potestas of these two Letters is much what the same, being both of them in a manner perfectly quiescent; and of this, as I conceive, we have an [Page 266] instance in Baal himself, the second Syllable of which begins with an Hajin, answering to the Hebrew Aleph. For El or Al with an Aleph, was the Eastern Name of God, and by this the Pagans called the Sun, and from it are derived the Latin Sol, and the Greek [...], and [...], so that Baal was nothing else but the Acclamation of the Pagans wellcoming, saluting, and adoring the Morning Sun, with this Ingemination frequently, and joyfully, and loudly repeated, Ba Al, Ba Al, that is, Dominus venit, Dominus venit, as one of the ancient forms of Excommunication was called Maranatha, or Dominus venit, with joy to his faithful Worshipers and Servants, and to the destruction and excision of his Enemies; and this heavy sort of Excommunication, is otherwise called by the Hebrews, Chereth or Excision; and by the Assyrians, or Syrochaldaeans Shamta, as much as to say, Shem Atha, or Nomen venit, understanding by Shem or Nomen, very frequently in the Rabbinical Language, the Nomen [...], the most Sacred and Essential Name of God, and from thence proceeded that Rabbinical Effatum, Hou Shmo, Veshmo Hou. He is his Name, and his Name is He; alluding to the constant practice and custom of the Rabbius, who [Page 267] almost every where call God by the Name of Hashem, or the Name. And such another Acclamation as this, was that of Lea [...], when she was safely delivered of her Son Gad, Bagad, a Troop cometh, where the Aleph is left out in the Masorethical Bibles, as well as in the instance of Bahal, and perhaps there being two Alephs in these two words, Ba and Al, an Hajin which is a Letter, somewhat the harder and harsher of the two, was the most proper to express the Coalition of them both, running and dissolving into one another; and if from this morning salutation of the Rising Sun, he came at last to be called by the Name of Bahal, which seems to me a very natural Conjecture; then the Sun being the Sovereign and Lord of all in the sense of the Ancient Pagans, and this Dominion of his being properly exprest and denoted in the latter part of his Name, This gives an easie account of all those Expositions which we meet with in our Lexicons, and how they came to signifie what they do; such as Bahal, Dominari, Maritum, (hoc est, Dominum uxoris) esse. Bohel, Conjux, Maritus, and Bahal Dominus; Maritus, Conjux, and Bahala Domina. But neither will this way of explaining the word Astarte, afford a genuin Interpretation of [Page 268] this place of Eusebius, as may be easily discerned by any one that shall apply the one to the other: It is necessary therefore that we interpret Astarte in this place, either of the Aether or Starry Region in general, of whose Substance the Stars and the very Planets themselves, in this remote Antiquity were supposed to be made; or that we take refuge in the Exposition of Suidas, [...], Astarte is the same that the Greeks call Venus, which if we understand, not of the Star or Planet of Venus, but of the Ʋniversal Nature, as I have already explained it, then the sense of this place of Eusebius, [...], will be this, that there was a time when those seven Titanides or Artemides, that is, as I interpret it, the seven Planets were not, but that in time they were produced by the Ʋniversal Nature, or Demiurgique Power of the Universe, and they are called Titanides, because of their separation from the Tohu, or of their daily emerging above the Horizon, and seeming as it were to spring out of the Earth; and for that other Name of Artemides, though the word [...], in the common usage of the Greek Language, be peculiar to Diana or the Moon; yet if that [Page 269] Etymon of this word, which I have elsewhere given, be true, as I do verily believe it is, that [...] is so called, [...], because the Moon in its Passage cuts and divides the Air or Aether, in so much, that to sense, in a Moonshiny Night it seems to make holes in the Clouds, and as it were to force its Passage through them, though indeed her Orb be far superior to the highest Clouds; then this belongs equally to all the Planets, for they do all by their Motion divide and cut the Aether in their Passage through it; but because this was most plainly and sensibly the Case of the Moon, and because the Region of the Clouds or the Atmosphaere through which she seems to pass, is that which is most properly called the Airy Region, in opposition to the pure Aether above it, which is of a [...]iner Consistence; therefore the Name [...], in the common usage of the Greek Language, was more peculiarly attributed to the Moon.
And because I have said above concerning Venus or the Ʋniversally Prolifique and Architectionique Nature, that the reason why she was said at sometimes to be born from the Sea, and at others in an Island, as likewise Jupiter and Apollo were, and Priapus by the Sea-side, was to signifie that [Page 270] Opinion which the Ancients received by Tradition, that all things at first sprang out of the Waters, or out of that Chaos or Primigen [...]al Mass, which was overwhelmed with them. This Notion may be still further confirmed by reflecting upon the Worship of Derceto or Atergatis, for they are both conceived to have been the same, whose Statue and Image among the Assyrians had the upper Parts of a beautiful Woman, but from the Thighs downwards, she had the Appearance of a larger sort of Fish; for this Atergatis was no other than the Prolifique or Demiurgique Nature of the Ʋniverse; and the Beauty of her upper Part, was to denote that exquisite symmetry and proportion of the Ʋniverse, which was of her contrivance; the lower which had the resemblance of a Fish, was to signifie from whence this Digestion and Separation was made, which had afterwards so beautiful and lovely an Appearance, viz. out of the Chaos or that Mass of Waters, with which the confused Seeds and Principles of Things were Anciently and Originally over whelmed; and that this Adargatis was no other than the Ʋniversal Nature, called at other times Pan, and Venus, and Priapus, and Proteus, and Thetis, and Tethys, and Jupiter, and Isis; and [Page 271] if there be any other Names by which the same thing is exprest, is evident from a Passage of Macrobius, where he expresly makes her, if not to be all in all, yet at least to be that Mass of Earth and Water, which perhaps was another reason of her Amphibious Image, from whence the Separation Saturn. L. 1. c. 23. was Originally made. His words are these, where speaking of the Sun, he says, Accipe quid Assyrii de Solis potentiâ opinentur. Deo enim quem summum maximum (que) venerantur, Adad nomen dederunt, ejus nominis interpretatio significat, Idem quod Hebreum Echad vel Achad. unus, hunc ergo ut potentissimum adorant Deum. Sed subjungunt eidem Deam nomine Adargatin, omnem (que) potestatem cunctarum rerum his duobus attribuunt, Solem terram (que) intelligentes, nec multitudine nominum enuntiantes diversam eorum per omnes species potestatem, sed Argumentis, quibus ornantur, significantes multiplicem praestantiam duplicis numinis. Ipsa autem Argumenta Sol [...]s rationem loquuntur. Nam (que) simulachrum Adad insig [...]e cernitur radiis inclinatis. Quibus monstratur vim Caeli in Radiis esse Solis, qui demittuntur in terram. Adargatis simulachrum sursum Versum reclinatis Radiis insigne est; monstrando Radiorum vi superne missorum, enasci quaecun (que) terra progenerat. Sub eodem simulachro species leonum sunt, eâdem ratione [Page 272] terram esse monstrantes, quâ Phryges [...]inxere matrem Deûm, id est, terram leonibus vehi. But now if Adargatis, according to Macrobius himself, be the same with the Mater Deûm, the Mother of the Gods, then is she neither the Earth nor the Sun, in distinction from each other; but both of these and all things else together, she is the Mother of the Gods, that is, the Primigenial Mass from whence the Separation of Aetherial and Starry Concretions was made, which are here called Gods; and the Beauty of her upper Parts considered together, with the deformity of those underneath, was but a symbolical Confusion of the Efficient and the Material Cause together. To the first of which the Symmetry of the World was owing; and the latter, that is, the Fish or the Mass of Waters, or the Chaos covered with them, out of which the Separation was made, suppli'd the great Artificer with subject Matter for his great Skill and Wisdom, to exercise and to exert it self upon. And so also it is in the Fable of Proteus, for he is properly the Efficient Cause, as is plainly discernible in his Name; but yet when the Poets represent him as a Sea God, this was only for that reason, because all things were Originally supposed to have sprung out of the Waters, and [Page 273] was a plain confusion of the Efficient and the Material Cause together.
So likewise in the Story of Isis, whose signification is by Macrobius confined to V Macrob. Satur. L. 1. c. 20. in fine. [...]t & c. 21. circà Med. Cap. the Earth, or to the Natura rerum subjace [...]s Soli, which he confirms by this observation, Hinc est quod continuatis uberibus corpus Deae omne densetur, quod terrae vel rerrum Naturae altu nutritur Ʋniversitas. And this was the reason why Isis or Io, by the Egyptians, was Worshiped in the Form of an Ox; that Animal among them being a Symbolical Emblem of that Fruitfulness and Plenty which the And to which the Ox contributes by its Labor in the Field, and which is fed and sustained, as all other Animals are by its productions. Earth produces, as appears by the fat and lean Kine in Pharaoh's Dream, which was interpreted by Joseph, of the Barrenness and Fertility of the Earth; and perhaps from that Interpretation of his, this Symbolism which had divine Authority to make it Sacred, began, as perhaps also the Worship of Apis, which with a little mutation, was as much as Alphis, from the Hebrew Eleph, signifying an Ox; and thence also was the Greek and Latin Elephas, and Elephantus, as being looked upon only as a larger sort of Ox or Bufaloe in the East.
But this is further confirmed by what Macrobius saith in another place, where among other Arguments, by which he [Page 274] learnedly and plainly proves, that Mercury and the Sun were sometimes antiently taken for the same, he uses this,
Argiphontes praetereà cognominatur, Macrob. Satur. L. 1. c. 19 (Mercurius) non quod Argum peremerit, quem ferunt per ambitum capitis multorum Oculorum luminibus ornatum, custodisse Junonis Imperio Inachi filiam Io ejus deae pellicem conversam in bovis Formam: Sed sub hujus modi Fabulâ Argus est Caelum stellarum luce distinctum; quibus inesse quaedam species Caelestium videtur Oculorum. Caelum autem Argum vocitari placuit à candore & velocitate, [...], & videtur terram desuper observare, quam Aegyptii Hieroglyphicis literis c [...]m signare volunt, ponunt bovis Figuram; is ergo ambitus Caeli, stellarum luminibus ornatus, tunc aestimatur enectus à Mercurio, cum Sol diurno tempore obscurando sidera, velut enecat, vi luminis sui conspectum eorum auferendo mortalibus.
But yet there are some that will needs Intel. Syst. c. 4. p. 350. falsly marked 410. have Isis to be the Supream Numen, or the Eternal and Omnipresent Mind, by whose Providence all things are forecast and contrived, and by his Power and Will concurring, reduced into Act, to which purpose they alledge the Capuan Inscription.
TIBI. ƲNA. QƲAE. ES. OMNIA. DEA. ISIS.
But by their leave, this do's not prove any more than that by this Isis, was meant the Ʋniversal Matter or Primigenial Mass, which in some sense may be said to be una or one, considered all together, and omnia or all, with respect to the infinite variety of the material or aspectable World, which is all of it composed out of several Modifications of this Primigenial Mass. And so also Thetis in what hath been said before; which is sometimes taken strictly for the Watery Mass, or the Genius, Nymph, or Daemon appertaining to it, is also, and that most properly, as hath been shewed, taken for the whole Chaos or Ʋniversal Mass, consisting of Earth and Water; and She was therefore by the Greek and Latin Poets, appropriated to the Water, because the Chaos was antiently over whelmed with them; and all things were supposed, in the beginning of Things, to have arisen and sprung from thence; and the Earth and Water having at first been mingled together, [Page 276] and never yet so wholly separated, but that they are still contiguous, so that they still contribute each of them their quota or proportion, to the making up an entire Globe; and that they are still not only by Showrs, but by subterraneous Springs, and by the secret Passages both of the Seas and Rivers into the Caverns of the Earth, incorporated into one another; And lastly, Being of a weight and consistence, not so much differing as is usually supposed, which is the reason the same Station in the Universe is assigned them; for all these Reasons, it is almost indifferent whether you say that all things sprang at first from the Earth, which is called Isis, or from the Sea, which the Poets call Thetis, or from both of these, as Homer do's, when he makes the Ocean to have been the Father, and the Earth the Mother of all the Gods, that is, of all kind of Starry or Aetherial Concretions, of a more fine, and minute Consistence, which were at first mingled and jumbled with these grosser Parts, and in process of Time were separated from them.
Neither am I at all moved from my Sentiments by the Authority of Plutarch, who, Intel. Syst. p 349. falsly marked 409. as the same learned Writer tells us, affirms that Isis and Neith, were really one and [Page 277] the same God among the Egyptians, and therefore the Temple of Neith or Minerva at Sais, is called by him, (that is, Plutarch,) the Temple of Isis. For that the Aegyptian Neith or Neithas, the Latin Minerva, and the Greek Pallas or Athena are the same, is that which I should have easily granted, and this Learned Author himself hath sufficiently proved it. First, From the Testimony of Proclus upon the Timaeus, who saith that the Grecian Athens and the Egyptian Sais had but one and the same Tutelar presiding over it. Secondly, By comparing a place of Athenagoras, and another of Jamblichus together, the former of which interprets [...], or Minerva, to be [...], that Wisdom or Providence which pervades or passes through all things; and the latter saith of the Aegyptian Deity, that it was [...], the Name of a God penetrating and insinuating himself through the whole World; to which he adds likewise a Passage of Horapollo, who saith of God according to the Aegyptians, That he was a Spirit diffusing it self through the World, and intimately pervading all things; that is, both the Egyptians by their Neith or Neithas, the Latins by their Minerva, and the Greeks [Page 278] by their Pallas and their Athene, understood an Omnipresent divine Mind or Ʋnderstanding united to a certain Subtle or Aetherial Matter, of which it makes great use in its external Operations. Thirdly, He proves the same by comparing the Inscription upon the Temple of Sais, concerning Neith or Neithas, [...]. I am all that was, is, and shall be, and my Peplum or Vail no mortal hath ever yet uncovered, with a place of Servius concerning Minerva. Peplum est propriè palla picta Feminea Minervae consecrata; in both which places the Peplum or Vail is the subtle Matter of the Ʋniverse, which was looked upon as the Cloathing or Body of the Deity; as in what hath been said above, it was called the Skin of the Amalthean Goat, the Reasons of which have been already assigned, and Pherecydes by another word, but still pointing and aiming at the same Notion, that the Aether was the Garment or Covering, or Body of the Divinity, calls it the [...], or Cloak of Jupiter.
That is, Jupiter makes himself a large and beautiful Cloak, and in it he Paints or Weaves [Page 279] the Ocean, and the Habitations thereof, that is, the Islands, and the greater Continents that are to be met with in it; and so the sense of this Egyptian Monument, [...]. And my Vail no mortal Man hath ever uncovered, will be this, My Vail it self which is, as it were, my Body composed of Subtle and Aetherial Matter; this, as being a sensible Object, you may behold with mortal and material Eyes, but my immortal and immaterial Part in which my Understanding, my Will, my Power, my Goodness, my Justice, and all my Perfections and Attributes reside; this no mortal, no material Eye can see, nor any finite Understanding comprehend; so then, this being the true Notion of Neith or Minerva, that it is the Subtle or Aetherial Matter of the Universe, actuated and animated by a divine Mind, very different from the dull, stupid, gross and unactive Earth; it would be very strange if Isis, who is without question, the same with the Earth, should be the same with Neith or Minerva also; besides, that when Pherecydes compares this Globe of Earth and Water, with its Ornaments of Trees, Flowers, and Inhabitants, to the Painting or Weaving of a Device upon a Garment, or to the Badge upon it, and if we consider the infinite disproportion which there is betwixt this little inconsiderable Mass, and the vast Circumference of the spacious Aether, we may as well say, not only that a Watermans, a Porters, or a Bedles Badge, is the Coat or Cloak upon which it is found; but that even a Button or Shoulderknot upon a Coat, are the Coat or Garment it self upon which it is worn, as that Neith, or Minerva, and Isis, are the same.
But, because the Authority of Plutarch, which is deservedly Great, is not for that reason slightly to be rejected, therefore I shall shew that he is not so much to be reli'd upon in these Matters, by considering and exposing some other of his Aegyptian Mistakes: Of Serapis, he says that he was so called from the Egyptian word [...], which he renders by [...], signifying a Feast of Joy and Gladness for the return of the Sun out of the Winter Signs, to bring a new Spring, a new Summer, new Plenty, and a new Harvest into Egypt, and thus much is true. First, That [...] might very well signifie this in the Egyptian Language, which was very nigh of kin to the Hebrew. For in Hebrew Shour is Cantavit, Cecinit, and Shir is Canticum, and the Song of Solomon is called in Hebrew by the Name of Shir ha shirim, the Song of Songs, and Songs were always a principal Expression of the Joy and Gladness of such Festival Solemnities.
Secondly, It is true that there was such a Feast as he speaks of, which Macrobius calls Hilaria, and points us to the very day upon which it was used to be Celebrated in these words, where speaking of the Names and Ceremonies belonging to the Sun among the Phrygians, Aegyptians and others, he says, Praecipuam autem Solis in his Ceremoniis verti rationem, hinc etiam potest colligi, quod ritu eorum (Aegyptiorum) catabasi finit â simulatione (que) luctûs peractâ, celebratur laetitiae exordium ad octavum Kalendas Aprilis, quem diem Hilaria appellant, quo primum tempore Sol diem longiorem nocte protendit. And what he means by the Catabasis or Descent of the Sun, he sufficiently explains in several places of this Chapter, [Page 281] where he divides the Signs af the Zodiac into Superiora and Inferiora, by the former understanding the Summer, and by the latter the Winter Signs of every respective place; so in the beginning of the Chapter, Sol annuo gressu per duodecim signorum ordinem pergens, partem quo (que) Hemispherii inferioris ingreditur, quia de duodecim signis Zodiaci sex Superiora, sex Inferiora censentur; and again a little after, Cum Solemersit ab Inferioribus partibus terrae, vernalis (que) aequinoctii transgreditur fines augendo diem tunc est & Venus laeta, &c. And other Expressions there are to the same purpose, which it is needless to Transcribe.
But now in the first place, This Etymon from the Egyptian [...], or the Hebrew Shir, by the Addition of an Aleph, which I have shewn already to be indifferently added or omitted, in the instances of Aram, Armenia, Assyria, Acheron, Orpheus, and others, had been a much more tolerable account of Osiris than Serapis.
Secondly, It would be a puzling Question, if Plutarch had been alive, and a Man should have put it to him, why had he not his Name from Grief as well as Joy? or indeed rather from the former than the latter. For they mourned for his absence six Months together; but this Festivity which was called [...], was as hath been proved, but of one days continuance.
Thirdly, The Aegyptians did not rejoyce for the return of the Sun, under the name of Serapis, but Osiris, as is evident from Macrobius, who tells us expresly, that the Phrygians performed this Ceremony to A [...]imes, and the Aegyptians to Osiris; for so having said what was last before cited concerning the Phrygians wellcoming [Page 282] their Attines, by which Name they call the Sun; after a six Months Period of Lamentation, he adds, Idem sub diversis nominibus Religionis effectus est apud Aegyptios cum Isis Osirin luget; where, what he says, sub diversis nominibus, is not so to be understood, as if the Aegyptians in the performance of this Religious Custom, were used to invoke the Sun by divers Names, who in the Celebration of this Mystery was never called by any other Name than Osiris, according to that of the Satyrist.
But only that whereas, the Phrygians welcomed the returning Sun under the name of Attines, and the Earth was represented as mourning for his absence, under the Name of Mater Deûm; the Aegyptians meaning the same thing, and using the same Ceremony, and at the same time that the Phrygians did, yet had different Names for the Objects of their Devotion, calling the Earth Isis, and the Sun Osiris.
Lastly, The true and unquestionable Etymology of Serapis, is from the Hebrew Saraph, signifying to burn, in which all the Radicals of this Name Serapis, are evidently contained, and the scortching Heat and fiery Nature of the Sun, is also very aptly exprest and signified by it, and from hence the Seraphim had their Names, being not Aerial Demons, but an Order of Spirits, whose Vehicles were of an Aetherial Consistence, consisting of igneous or lucid Parts, as the Cherub at the Entrance of Paradise, is described, holding a Flaming Sword in his hand; and according to what the Psalmist saith of God in a very known [Page 283] place, That he maketh his Angels Spirits, and his Ministers a Flame of Fire.
Secondly, Another instance which I shall give of Plutarchs unskilfulness in these Matters, shall be taken from what he saith concerning Osiris; of which he gives two several Interpretations, First, That it is as much as [...]; Os, as he says, among the Aegyptians, De Is. & Osir. signifying many, and Irin an Eye. Secondly, That it is as much as [...], an active and beneficent Power; and in another place, it is [...], The first and highest of all things, the same with the Tagathon or supream Good; which is also confirmed by a Passage of Jamblichus, [...], V. Intel. Sys. p 151 falsly marked 411. that the supream Numen from its beneficent Nature, or from its Attribute of Goodness, is called Osiris. Now in the first place, it may seem very strange that the same word in the same Language, should signifie two things so different from one another, as that which hath many Eyes, and that which hath abundance of goodness and beneficence in its Nature, though indeed in a symbolical way such a thing might be, in as much as many Eyes may be a pretty natural symbol of Care and Circumspection, but then this Care so far as it depends upon this Symbol, is perfectly indifferent either to Good or Evil, and there is no reason why it should be restrained to one, rather than the other, for Watchfulness and Circumspection may be to bad purposes as well as to good. But Secondly, If by Osiris be meant the Sun, as there is no manner of question but that was the meaning, why should he be called [...], who had but one Eye, as hath been already discoursed in what hath been said above concerning the Cyclops, nay, whose Hieroglyphic and Symbol was not many Eyes, as this Interpretation of Plutarch may seem to insinuate but one, [Page 284] they are the express words of Macrob. concerning him. Satur. l. 1. c. 21. Osirin Aegyp [...] ut Solem esse asserant, quotiens Hieroglyphicis literis suis exprimere volunt, insculpunt sceptrum, [...]n (que) eo speciem oculi exprimunt, & hoc signo Osirin monstrant; significantes hunc Deum Solem esse, regali (que) potestate su [...]limem cuncta despicere: Quia Solem Jovis, (i. e. Aetheris,) oculum app [...]llat antiquitas. Thirdly, It is to be observed, that there was antiently a very great Affinity betwixt the Aegyptian, Chaldean, Persian, and Hebrew Tongues. Now there is nothing in Hebrew to make up the Name of Osiris, that signifies either [...] or [...]. For taking for granted what Plutarch tells us that Irin in the Aegyptian, signifies an Eye, which I believe to have been a mistake, and that this Irin of his was nothing but a corruption of the Hebrew Hajin, which signifies an Eye, but will not do his business for want of an [...] there is no word in Hebrew that comes any thing nigh the other part of the composition, unless it be Hatsam, multum, numerorum esse, and at that rate it should be Ots [...]ris, not Osiris, without the Elision of the M. which is in this case very uncouth and hard; or from Phoush, Abundare, Augescere, Multiplicare, and so it should be Phosiris; besides, that these two Significations assigned by Plutarch, are therefore inconsistent with each other, because the former of them supposes the word Osiris to be a compound, but the latter a simple, as shall be hereafter declared; in the mean time, to shew the validity of this Argument, which is drawn from the great likeness of the Aegyptian and Hebrew, and other Oriental T [...]ng [...]es. I will instance in all the Persian and Aegyptian Gods that came to my mind, most of which were but so many Names of the Sun, and shew plainly that they are all of them as to their signification agreeable to the Hebrew, though as to their particular Application to the Sun or the Earth, they were peculiar to the Persian or Aegyptian Soil.