The Grounds of the Christian Faith, Book 1 · Chapter 2
CHAP. II. Of the Phoenician and Aegyptian History.
The particular defect in the Historys of the most learned Heathen Nations. First the Phoenicians. Of Sanchoniathon, his Antiquity, and Fidelity. Of Jerom-baal, Baal-Berith. The Antiquity of Tyre. Scaliger vindicated against Bochartus Abibalus. The vanity of Phoenician Theology. The imitation of it by the Gnosticks. Of the Aegyptian History. The Antiquity and Authority of Hermes Trismegistus. Of his Inscriptions on Pillars, transcribed by Manetho. His Fabulousness thence discovered. Terra Seriadica. Of Seths Pillars in Josephus, and an account whence they were taken.
HAving already shewed a general defect in the Ancient Sect. 1.Heathen Histories, as to an account of ancient times; we now come to a closer, and more particular consideration of the Histories of those several Nations which have born the greatest name in the world for learning and antiquity. There are four Nations chiefly which have pretended the most to antiquity in the learned world, and whose Historians have been thought to deliver any thing contrary to holy Writ in their account of ancient times, whom on that account we are obliged more particularly to consider; and those are the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, Aegyptians, and Graecians; we shall therefore see what evidence of credibility there can be in any of these, as to the matter of antiquity of their Records, or the Histories taken from them. And the credibility of an Historian depending much upon the certainty and authority of the Records he makes use of: we shall both consider of what value and antiquity the pretended Records are, and particularly look into the age of the several Historians. As to the Graecians, we have seen already an utter impossibility of having any ancient Records among them, because they wanted the means of preserving them, having so lately borrowed their Letters from other Nations. Unless as to their account of times they had been as carefull as the old Romans were to number their years by the several clavi, or nails, which they fixed on the Temple doors: which yet they were not in any capacity to do, not growing up in an entire body, as the Roman Empire did, but lying so much seattered and divided into so many pet…y Republicks, that they minded very little of concernment to the whole Nation. The other three Nations have dese… vedly a name of far greater antiquity then any the Graecians could ever pretend to; who yet were unmeasurably guilty of an impotent affectation of antiquity; and arrogating to themselves, as growing on their own ground, what was with a great deal of pains and industry gathered but as the gleanings from the fuller harvest of those nations they resorted to. Which is not only true as to the greatest part of their Learning, but as to the account likewise they give of ancient times; the chief and most ancient Histories among them being only a corruption of the History of the elder Nations; especially Phoenicia and Aegypt: for of these two Philo Biblius the Translator of the ancient Phoenician Historian Sanchoniathon, saith, they were foreign, Apud Euseb. praep. Evang. l. 1. c. 8. p. 23: Ed. R. St.The most ancient of all the Barbarians, from whom the others derived their Theology; which he there particularly instanceth in.
We begin therefore with the Phoenician History, whose most ancient and famous Historian is Sanchoniathon, so much Sect. 2.admired and made use of by the shrewdest antagonist ever Christianity met with, the Philosopher Porphyrius. But therein was seen the wonderful providence of God, that out of this eater came forth meat, and out of that Lion honey; that the most considerable testimonies by him produced against our Religion, were of the greatest strength to refute his own. For he being of too great Learning to be satisfied with the vain pretences of the Graecians, he made it his business to search after the most ancient Records, to find out somewhat in them to confront with the antiquity of the Scriptures; but upon his search could find none of greater veneration then the Phoenician History, nor any Author contending for age with this Sanchoniathon. Yet when he had made the most of his Testimony, he was fain to yield him younger then Moses…, though he supposeth him elder then the Trojan Wars. And yet herein was he guilty of a most gross foreign, not much exceeding the Graecians in his skill in Chronology, when he makes Semiramis coexistent with the Siege of Troy: as is evident in his testimony produced at large by Eusebius out of his fourth Book against the Christians; nay, Praep. Evang. l. 10. c. 8. p. 285.he goes to prove the truth of Sanchoniathons History by the agreement of it with that of Moses concerning the Iews, both as to their names and places, foreign: whereby he doth evidently assert the greater Truth and Antiquity of Moses his History, when he proves the truth of Sanchoniathons from his consonancy with that.
Two things more Porphyrie insists on to manifest his credibility; Sect. 3.the one I suppose relates to what he reports concerning the Iews, the other concerning the Phoenicians themselves. For the first, that he made use of the Records of Ierombaal the Priest of the God Ieuo, or rather Iao; for the other, that he used all the records of the several Cities, and the sacred inscriptions in the Temples. Who that Ierombaal was, is much discussed among learned men, the finding out of which, hath been thought to be the most certain way to determine the age of Sanchoniathon. The learned Bochartus conceives him to be Gideon, who in Scripture Geogr. Sacr. p. 2. l. 2. c. 17.is called Ierub-baal, which is of the same sense in the Phoenician language, only after their custome changing one b into m, as in Ambubajae Sambuca, &c. But admitting the conjecture of this learned person concerning Ierub-baal, yet I see no necessity of making Sanchoniathon and him co-temporary; for I no where find any thing mentioned in Porphyrie implying that, but only that he made use of the records of Ierub-baal, which he might very probably do at a considerable distance of time from him, whether by those foreign, we mean the Annals written by him, or the records concerning his actions; either of which might give Sanchoniathon considerable light into the history either of the Isralites or Phoenicians. And it is so much the more probable, because presently after the death of Gideon, the Israelites worshipped Baal-berith; by which most probably is meant Jud. 8. 33.the Idol of Berith or Berytus, the place where Sanchoniathen lived; by which means the Berytians might come easily acquainted with all the remarkable passages of Ierubbaal.
But I cannot conceive how Sanchoniathon could be cotemporary Sect. 4.with Gideon (which yet if he were, he falls 182 years short of Moses) especially because the building of Tyre, which that Author mentions as an ancient thing (as hath been observed by Scaliger) is by our best Chronologers placed about the time of Gideon, and about 65 years before Not. in fragm. Graec. p. 40.the destruction of Troy. I know Bochartus, to avoid this argument, hath brought some evidence of several places called Tyrus in Phoenicia, from Scylax his Periplus; but none, that there was any more then one Tyrus of any great repute for antiquity. Now this Tyrus Iosephus makes but 240 years elder then Solomons Temple, and Iustin but one year elder then the destruction of Troy. Neither can any A…tiq. l. 8.account be given why Sidon should be so much celebrated by ancient Poets, as Strabo tells us, when Tyre is not so much as mentioned by Homer, if the famous Tyre were of so Geogr. l. 16.great antiquity and repute as is pretended. It cannot be denied but that there is mention in Scripture of a Tyre elder then this we speak of, which we read of Ioshua 19. 29. which some think to be that wch was called Palaetyrus, which Strabo makes to be 30 furlongs distant from the great Tyre; but Pliny includes Palaetyrus within the circumference of Tyre, and so makes the whole circuit of the City to be 19 Hist. Nat. l. 5. c. 19.miles. It is not to me so certain to what place the name of Palaetyrus refers, whether to any Tyrus before the first building of the great Tyre, or to the ruines of the great Tyre after its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, compared with the new Tyre, which was built more inward to the Sea, and was after besieged by Alexander the great. It may seem probable that Palaetyrus may relate to the ruins of the great Tyre, in that it was after included in its circuit, and chiefly because of the prediction in Ezekiel 26. 4. Thou shalt be built no more; for the Tyre erected after, was built not on the Continent, but almost in the Sea. If so, then Palaetyrus, or the old famous Tyrus might stand upon a rock upon the brink-of the Continent, and so the great argument of Bo-chartus is easily answered, which is, that after it is mentioned in Sanchoniathons history, that Hypsouranius dwelt in Tyre upon the falling out between him and his brother Usous, Usous first adventured foreign, to go to sea, which, saith he, evidently manifests that the Tyre mentioned by Sanchoniathon was not the famous Insular Tyrus, but some other Tyre. This argument, I say, is now easily answered, if the famous Tyre before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar did stand upon the Continent; for then it might be the old famous Tyre still, notwithstanding what Sanchoniathon speaks of the first venturing to sea after Tyre was built. So then I conceive these several ages agreeable to the same Tyre; the first was when it was a high strong rock on the sea-side without many inhabitants; so I suppose it was when mentioned by Ioshua as the bound of the tribe of Asher. The second Age was, when it was built a great City by the Sidonians upon the former place, and grew very populous and famous, which lasted till Nebuchadnezzars time; after this, though it were never built up in the Continent again, yet a little further into the Sea, a new and goodly City was erected, which was called new Tyre, and the remains on the Continent side Palaetyrus. Thus far then we have made good Scaligers opinion against Bochartus, that the famous Sanchoniathon is not so old as he is pretended to be.
Which will be further manifest, if that Abibalus, to whom Sanchoniathon is supposed to dedicate his History, were the Sect. 5.Father to Hiram, co-temporary with Solomon, as Ios. Scaliger supposeth, who was 154 years after the destruction of Troy. Not. in Euseb. Chr. p. 1….In the Tyrian Dynasties produced by Scaliger out of the Phoenician Annals, this Abibalus is the first who occurs, and is co-temporary with David: Sanchoniathon then is of no Canon. 1. sag. l. 2great antiquity, if this were the time he lived in. But Bochartus well observes, that it is not spoken of Abibalus King of Tyre, but of Abibalus King of Berytus, whom we may allow to be somewhat nearer the time of Moses then the other Abibalus, as the Phoenician Annals make it appear, as Porphyry tells us; but yet we find his antiquity is not so great as to be able to contest with Moses, as Porphyry himself confesseth, although we may freely acknowledge him to be far older then any of the Greek Historians; which is all Vossius contends for, and sufficiently proves; but we are De hist. Graec. l. 1. c. 1.far from yielding him co-temporary with Semiramis, as Porphyry would have him, and yet makes him junior to Moses, and to live about the time of the Trojan war, which is to reconcile the distance of near 800 years: such miserable confusion was there in the best learned Heathens in their computation of ancient times.
Having thus cleared the antiquity of Sanchoniathon, and the Phoenician History, we are next to consider the fidelity Sect. 6.of it. This Sanchoniathon is highly commended for, both by Porphyry, and his Translator into Greek, Philo Byblius, who lived in Adrians time; and Theodoret thinks his name in the Phoenician language signifies foreign, which Bochartus endeavours to fetch from thence, and conceives the name to be given him when he set himself to write his History; and he wisheth, and so do we, that he had been then vir sui nominis, and made it appear by his writing that he had been a Lover of truth. Philo saith he was foreign, a very learned and inquisitive man; but either he was not so diligent to enquire after, or not so happy to light on any certain records; or if he did, he was not overmuch a Lover of truth, in delivering them to the world. How faithful he was in transcribing his history from his records, we cannot be sufficient Iudges of, unless we had those books of Taautus, and the sacred Inscriptions, and the records of Cities, which he pretends to take his history from, to compare them together. But by what remains of his history, which is only the first book concerning the Phoenician Theology extant in Eusebius, we have little reason to believe his history of the world and eldest times, without further proof then he gives of it, there being so much obscurity and confusion in it, when he makes a Chaos to be the first beginning of all things, and the Gods to come after, makes the foreign and foreign, the son of Chryser or Vulcan, and again the man born of earth to be several generations after foreign and foreign, who were the first mortal men; and yet from the two brethren foreign and foreign came two Gods, whereof one was called foreign, and the other foreign, and this latter was worshipped with as much veneration as any of their Gods. Yet from these things, as foolish and ridiculous as they are, it is very probable the Gnosticks and the several subdivisions of them might take the rise of their several Aeones and foreign: for here we find foreign and foreign made two of the number of the Gods, but the rest of the names, they according to their several Sects took a liberty of altering, according to their several fancies. This is far more probable to me, then that either Hesiods foreign should be the ground of them; or the opinion of a late German Divine, who conceives that Philo Byblius did in imitation of the Gnosticks, form this whole story of the Phoenician Theology. For although I am far from believing what Kircher somewhere tells us, that he had once got a sight of Sanchoniathons Original History (it being not the first thing that learned man hath been deceived in) yet I see no ground of so much Peevishness, as because this history pretends to so much antiquity, we should therefore presently condemn it as a figment of the Translator of it. For had it been so, the Antagonists of Porphyry, Methodius, Apollinaris, but especially Eusebius, so well versed in antiquities, would have found out so great a cheat: Although I must confess they were oft-times deceived with piae fraudes; but then it was when they made for the Christians, and not against them, as this did. But besides a fabulous confusion of things together, we have some things delivered concerning their Gods, which are both contrary to all natural notions of a Deity, and to those very common principles of humanity, which all acknowledge. As when foreign, or Saturn, suspecting his son Sadidus, destroyed him with his own hands, and warred against his Father Uranus, and after destroyed him likewise, & buried his brother Atlas alive in the earth; which being taken, as Philo Byblius contends they ought to be, in the literal sense, are such incongruities to all notions of a divine nature, that it is the greatest wonder there should be any that should believe there was any God, and believe these were Gods together.
But although there be so many gross fables and inconsistencies in this Phoenician Theology, that are so far from meriting Sect. 7.belief in themselves, that it were a sufficient forfeiture of reason to say they were credible; yet when we have a greater light in our hands of divine revelation, we may in this dung…on find out many excellent remainders of the ancient tradition, though miserably corrupted, as concerning the Creation, the Original of Idolatry, the invention of Arts, the foundation of Cities, the story of Abraham, of which in their due place. That which of all seems the clearest in this Theology, is the open owning the original of Idolatry to have been from the consecration of some eminent persons after their death, who have found out some useful things for the world while they were living: Which the subtiller Greeks would not admit of, viz. that the persons they worshipped were once men, which made them turn all into Allegories and Mystical senses to blind that Idolatry they were guilty of the better among the ignorant: which makes Philo Byblius so very angry with the Neoterick Graecians, as he calls them, foreign: That with Apud Euseb. Praep. l. 1. c. 6. p. 23.a great deal of force and straining they turned all the stories of the Gods into Allegories and Physical discourses. Which is all the Ingenuity that I know is to be found in this Phoenician Theology, that therein we find a free acknowledgement of the beginning of the Heathen Idolatry; and therefore Sanchoniathon was as far from advancing Porphyries Religion, as he was in the least from overthrowing the credibility of Christianity.
The next we come to then, are the Aegyptians; a people so unreasonably given to fables, that the wisest action they did, Sect. 8.was to conceal their Religion; & the best office their Gods had, was to hold their fingers in their mouths, to command silence to all that came to worship them. But we design not here any set discourse concerning the vanity of the Aegyptian Theology, which yet was so monstrously ridiculous, that even those who were over-run with the height of Idolatry themselves, did make it the object of their scorn and laughter. And certainly had we no other demonstration of the greatness of mans Apostacy and degeneracy, the Egyptian Theology would be an irrefragable evidence of it: For who could but imagine a strange lowness of spirit in those who could fall down and worship the basest and most contemptible of creatures. Their Temples were the best Hieroglyphicks of themselves, fair and goodly structures without, but within some deformed creature enshrin'd for veneration. But though the Egyptians had lost their credit so much as to matters of Religion; yet it may be supposed, that they who were so famed for wisdom and antiquity, should be able to give a full and exact account of themselves through all the ages of the world. And this they are so far from being defective in, that if you will believe them, they will give you an account of themselves many thousands of years before ever the world was made; but the peculiar vanity of their Chronology will be handled afterwards: That we now enquire into, is, what certain records they had of their own antiquity, which might call for assent from any unprejudiced mind; whether there be any thing really answering that loud and unparalleld cry of antiquity among the Egyptians, whereby they will make all other Nations in comparison of them to be but of yesterday, and to know nothing. We question not now their pretence to wisdom and learning, but are the more in hopes to meet with some certain way of satisfaction concerning ancient times, where learning is supposed to have flourished so much, when even Greece it self was accounted Barbarous.
The great Basis of all the Egyptian History depends on the credit of their ancient Hermes, whom out of their veneration Sect. 9.they called Trismegistus; for to him they ascribe the first invention of their learning, and all excellent Arts, from him they derive their history; their famous Historian Man…tho, professing to transcribe his Dynastyes from the pillars of Hermes. We shall therefore first see of what credit and antiquity Hermes himself was, and of what account particularly those pillars were which hold up all the Fabrick of Manetho his Dynastyes. For Hermes himself, the story concerning him is so various and uncertain, that some have from thence questioned whether ever there were such a person or no, because of the strangely different account that is given of him. Cotta in Tully, in order to the establishing his Academical doctrine of withholding assent, mentions no De nat. Deor. l. 3.fewer then five Mercuries; of which, two he makes Egyptian, one of them the Hermes we now speak of, whom the Egyptians call Thoyth, and was the Author both of their Laws and Letters. The Egyptians, as appears by Diodorus, make him to be a sacred Scribe to Osiris, and to have instructed Isis; and when Osiris went upon any warlike Expedition, he committed the management of affairs to him for his great wisdom. The Phoenicians preserve his memory among them too: for Philo Byblius saith, that Sanchoniathon described his Theology from the books of Taautus, whom the Egyptians call Thoyth, who was the first inventer of Letters, and was a Counsellor to Saturn, whose advice he much relied on. What now must we pitch upon in so great uncertainties? how come the Phoenician and Egyptian Theology to come both from the same person, which are conceived so much to differ from each other? If we make the stories of Osiris and Isis to be fabulous, and meerly Allegorical, as Plutarch doth, then Mercury himself must become an Allegory, and the Father of Letters must be an Hieroglyphick. If we admit the Egyptians narrations to be real, and seek to reduce them to truth, and thereby make Osiris to be Mitsraim the son of Cham, who first ruled in Egypt, all that we can then affirm of Hermes, is, that he might be some useful person, who had a great influence both upon the King and State, and did first settle the Nation in a politick way of government, whose memory on that accout the Egyptians might preserve with the greatest veneration; and when they were once fallen into that Idolatry of consecrating the memories of the first contributers to the good of mankind, they thought they had the greatest reason to adore his memory, and so by degrees attributed the invention of all useful things to him. For so it is apparent they did, when Iamblichus tells us the Egyptians attributed all their books to De Myst. l. 1.Mercury, as the Father of them; because he was reputed the Father of wit and learning, they made all the off-springs of their brains to bear their Fathers name. And this hath been the great reason the world hath been so long time imposed upon with varieties of books going under the name of Hermes Tresmegistus. For he was not the first of his kind, who in the early days of the Christian world obtruded upon the world that Cento or confused mixture of the Christian, Platonick, and Aegyptïan doctrine, which is extant still under the name of Hermes Trismegistus; whose vanity and falshood hath been sufficiently detected by learned men. There were long before his time extant several Mercurial books, as they were called, which none of the wiser Heathen did ever look on as any other then Fables and Impostures, as appears by Porphyries letter to Arebo the Egyptian Priest, and Iamblichus his answer to it in his Book of the Aegyptian Mysteries.
We have then no certainty at all, notwithstanding the Sect. 10.great fame of Hermes, of any certain records of antient times, unless they be contained in those sacred inscriptions from whence Manetho took his history. It must be acknowledged that the most antient way of preserving any monuments of learning in those elder times was by these inscriptions on pillars, especially among the Aegyptians, as is evident from the several testimonies of Galen, Proclus, Iamblichus, Gal. l. 1. c. Jal. c. 1. Procl. in Tim. p. 31. Iamb. demyst. c. 2. s. 1. Sap. c. 2. s. 1.and the author of the Book called Sapientia secundum Egytios, adjoyned to Aristotle, who all concur in this, that what ever laudable invention they had among them, it was inscribed on some pillars, and those preserved in their Temples, which were instead of Libraries to them. Manetho therefore to make his story the more probable pretends to take all his relations from these sacred inscriptions; and as Eusebius tells us, translated the whole Egyptian History into Greek, beginning from their Gods, and continuing his History down near the time of Darius Codomannus, whom Alexander conquered: for in Eusebius his Chronica mention is made of Manetho his History, ending 16. year of Artaxerxes Ochus, which, saith Vossius, was in the second year of 107. Olympiad. This Manetho Gebenyta was High Priest of Heliopolis in the time of Ptolomaeus Philadelphus, at whose Do hist. Graec. l 1. c. 14.request he writ his History, which he digested into three Tomes, the first containing the 11. Dynastyes of the Gods and Heroes, the 2d. 8. Dynasties, the 3 d. 12. all containing, according to his fabulous computation, the sum of 53535. years. These Dynasties are yet preserved, being first epitomized by Iulius Africanus, from him transcribed by Eusebius in his Chronica, from Eusebius by Georgius Syncellus, out of whom they are produced by Ios. Scaliger, and may be seen both in Eusebius, and his Canones Isagogici.
Now Manetho, as appears by Eusebius, voucheth this as the main testimony of his credibility, that he took his History, Sect. 11.foreign. From some pillars in the Land of Seriad, in which they were inscribed in the sacred dialect by the first Mercury Tyth, and after the stood were translated out of the sacred dialect into the Greek tongue in Hieroglyphick Characters, and are laid up in books among the Revestryes of the Egyptian Temples, by Agathodaemon, the second Mercury, the Father of Tat. Certainly this fabulous author could not in fewer words have more fully manifested his own Impostures, nor blasted his own credit more then he hath done in these; which it is a wonder so many Learned men have taken so little notice of, which have found frequent occasion to speak of Manetho and his Dynastyes. This I shall make appear by some great improbabilities, and other plain impossibilities which are couched in them. The improbabilities are, first such pillars, being in such a place as Seriad, and that place no more spoken of either by himself, or by any other Egyptians, nor any use made of these ins…riptions by any other but himself. As to this terra Seriadica where it should be, the very learned and inquisitive Ioseph Scaliger plainly gives out, and ingenuously professeth his ignorance. For in his notes on the fragments of Manetho in Eusebius, when he comes to that foreign, he only saith, Quae nobis ignota, quaerant Studiosi. But Isaac Vossius in his late discourses de aetate mundi, Not. in gr. Euseb. p. 408. De at. muad. cap. 10.cries foreign, and confidently perswades himself that it is the same with Seirath, mentioned Iudg. 3. 16. Indeed were there nothing else to be considered but affinity of names, it might well be the same, but that foreign which we render the stone-quarries, should signifie these pillars of Mercury, is somewhat hard to conceive. The Seventy render it, as himself observes, foreign, by which they understand graven Images: So the word is used 2 Chron. 33. 19. Deut. 7. 5. Isai. 10. 19. The vulgar Latine renders it ad locum Idolorum, which were the certain interpretation if Chytraeus his conjecture were true, that Eglon had lately set up Idols there; but if it be meant of pillars, I cannot but approve of Iunius his interpretation, which I conceive bids fairest to be the genuine sense of the place, viz. that these stones here, were the 12 stones pitched by Ioshua in Gilgal after the Israelites passed over Iordan; and these stones are said Josh. 4. 19, 20, 21.to be by Gilgal, Iudg. 3. 19. So that notwithstanding this handsom conjecture, we are as far to seek for the pillars of Mercury as ever we were, and may be so to the worlds end. Secondly, the standing of these pillars during the stood, which must be supposed certainly to have some singular vertue in them to resist such a torrent of waters, which overthrew the strongest built houses, and most compacted Cities; the plain impossibilities are first, that Manetho should transcribe his Dynastyes from the beginning of the History of Aegypt, to almost the time of Alexander, out of sacred Inscriptions of Thoyth, who lived in the beginning of the very first Dynasty according to his own Computation. Sure this Thoyth was an excellent Prophet, to write an History for above, 0000 years to come, as Manetho reckons it. Secondly, it is as well still, that this History after the flood should be translated into Hieroglyphick Characters; what kind of translation is that? we had thought Hieroglyphicks had been representations of things, and not of sounds and letters, or words: How could this History have at first been written in any tongue, when it was in Hieroglyphicks? Do Hieroglyphicks speak in several Languages, and are they capable of changing their tongues? But thirdly, it is as good still, that the second Mercury or Agathodaemon did translate this History so soon after the Flood into Greek: Was the Greek tongue so much in request so soon after the Flood? that the Aegyptian History for the sake of the Greeks must be translated into their language? Nay, is it not evident from Herodotus and Diodorus, that the Graecians were not permitted so much He…odd 2. Diod. l. c. 67.as any commerce with the Aegyptians, till the time of Psammet hicus, which sell out in the 26. Dynesty of Manetho, and about a Century after the beginning of the Olympiads. We see then how credible an Author Manetho is, and what truth there is like to be in the account of ancient times given by the Aegyptian Historians, when the chief of them so lamentably and ominously stumbles in his very entrance into it.
And yet as fabulous as this account is, which Manetho gives of his taking his history from these pillars before the Sect. 12.Flood, I cannot but think that Iosephus, an Author otherwise of good credit, took his famous story of Seths pillars concerning Astronomical observations before the flood, from this story of Manetho; and therefore I cannot but look upon them with as jealous an eye as on the other, although I know how fond the world hath been upon that most ancient monument, as is pretended, of learning in the world. Du Bartas hath writ a whole Poem on these pillars, and the truth is, they are fitter subjects for Poets then any else, as will appear on these considerations. First, how strangely improbable is it, that the posterity of Seth, who, as is pretended, did foreknow a destruction of the world to be by a flood, should busie themselves to write Astronomical observations on pillars, for the benefit of those who should live after it. Could they think their pillars should have some peculiar exemption above stronger structures, from the violence of the rough and furious waters? If they believed the flood absolutely universal, for whom did they intend their observations? if not, to what end did they make them, when the persons surviving might communicate their inventions to them? But secondly, if either one or both these pillars remained, whence comes it to pass that neither the Chaldeans, nor any of the eldest pretenders to Astronomy, should neither mention them, nor make any use of them? Nay thirdly, whence came the study of Astronomy to be so lamentably defective in those ancient times, if they had such certain observations of the heavenly bodies gathered by so much experience of the persons who lived before the Flood? Fourthly, how comes Iosephus himself to neglect this remarkable testimony of the truth of Scripture-history in his books against Appion, if he had thought it were such as might be relyed on? Fifthly, how comes Iosephus so carelesly to set down the place in Syria where these pillars stood, that inquisitive persons might have satisfied themselves with the sight of the pillar at least, and what kind of Characters those observations were preserved in? But now, if we compare this of Iosephus with Manetho his story, we shall find them so exactly resemble each other, that we may well judge all those pillars to have been taken out of the same quarry. Two things make it yet more probable: First, the name of the place wherein they stood, which Eustathius in Hexaemeron takes out of Iosephus, and calls foreign, the very same place with that in Manetho. The other is the common use of the name of Seth among the Aegyptians, as not only appears by Plutarch de … side & Osiride, but by this very place of Manctho; where it follows foreign, a book of his bearing the title which Vettius Valens Antiochenus tells us is not called Apud Scaliger. pot. Gr. p. 438.foreign but foreign. Now therefore Iosephus, who frequently useth the Testimony of Heathen Writers, and frequently of this Manetho, endeavoured to bring this fabulous relation of Manetho as near the truth as he could; therefore in stead of Thoyth he puts Seth, and the fabulous history of Aegypt, the inventions of the Patriarchs, and Syria in stead of Seriadica, a Country too large to find these pillars in.