The Grounds of the Christian Faith, Book 1 · Chapter 1
CHAP. I. The obscurity and defect of Ancient History.
The knowledge of truth proved to be the most natural perfection of the rational soul; yet error often mistaken for truth, the accounts of it. Want of diligence in its search, the mixture of truth and falshood: Thence comes either rejecting truth for the errors sake, or embracing the error for the truths sake; the first instanced in Heathen Philosophers, the second in vulgar Heathen. Of Philosophical Atheism, and the grounds of it. The History of Antiquity very obscure. The question stated where the true History of ancient times to be found, in Heathen Histories, or only in Scripture? The want of credibility in Heathen Histories asserted and proved by the general defect for want of timely records among Heathen Nations; the reason of it shewed from the first Plantations of the World. The manner of them discovered. The Original of Civil Government. Of Hieroglyphicks. The use of letters among the Greeks no elder then Cadmus, his time enquired into, no elder then Joshua, the learning brought into Greece by him.
ENquiries after truth have that peculiar commendation Sect. 1.above all other designs, that they come on purpose to gratifie the most noble faculty of our souls, and do most immediately tend to re-advance the highest perfection of our rational beings. For all our most laudable endeavours after knowledge now, are only the gathering up some scattered fragments of what was once an entire Fabrick, and the recovery of some precious Iewels which were lost out of sight, and sunk in the shipwrack of humane nature. That saying of Plato, that all knowledge is remembrance, and all ignorance forgetfulness, is a certain and undoubted truth, if by forgetfulness be meant the loss, and by remembrance the recovery of those notions and conceptions of things which the mind of man once had in its pure and primitive state, wherein the understanding was the truest Microcosm, in which all the beings of the inferiour world were faithfully represented according to their true, native, and genuine perfections. God created the soul of man not only capable of finding out the truth of things, but furnished him with a sufficient foreign or touchstone to discover truth from falshood, by a light set up in his understanding, which if he had attended to, he might have secured himself from all impostures and deceits. As all other beings were created in the full possession of the agreeable perfections of their several natures, so was man too, else God would have never closed the work of Creation with those words, And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good; that is, endued with all those perfections which were suitable Gen. 1. 31to their several beings. Which man had been most defective in, if his understanding had not been endowed with a large stock of intellectual knowledge, which is the most natural and genuine perfection belonging to his rational being. For reason being the most raised faculty of humane nature, if that had been defective in its discoveries of truth, which is its proper object, it would have argued the greatest maim and imperfection in the being it self. For if it belongs to the perfection of the sensitive faculties to discern what is pleasant from what is hurtful, it must needs be the perfection of the rational to find out the difference of truth from falshood. Not as though the soul could then have had any more then now, an actual notion of all the beings in the world ocexisting at the same time, but that it would have been free from all deceits in its conceptions of things, which were not caused through inadvertency.
Which will appear from the several aspects mans knowledge Sect. 2.ledge hath, which are either upwards towards his Maker, or abroad on his fellow-creatures. If we consider that contemplation of the soul which fixes its self on that infinite being which was the cause of it, and is properly foreign; it will be found necessary for the soul to be created in a clear and distinct knowledge of him, because of mans immediate obligation to obedience unto him. Which must necessarily suppose the knowledge of him whose will must be his rule; for if man were not fully convinced in the first moment after his creation of the being of him, whom he was to obey, his first work and duty would not have been actual obedience, but a search whether there was any supreme, infinite, and eternal being or no; and whereon his duty to him was founded, and what might be sufficient declaration of his Will and Laws, according to which he must regulate his obedience. The taking off all which doubts and scruples from the soul of man, must suppose him fully satisfied upon the first free use of reason, that there was an Infinite Power and Being which produced him, and on that account had a right to command him in whatsoever he pleased, and that those commands of his were declared to him in so certain a way that he could not be deceived in the judging of them. The clear knowledge of God will further appear most necessary to man in his first creation, if we consider that God created him for this end and purpose, to enjoy converse, and an humble familiarity with himself, he had then foreign in the language of Clemens Alexandrinus, Converse with God was as natural Protrept. p. 63.to him as his being was. For man, as he came first out of Gods hands, was the reflection of God himself on a dark Cloud, the Iris of the Deity, the Similitude was the same, but the substance different: Thence he is said to be created after the Image of God. His knowledge then had been more Gen. 1. 26.intellectual then discursive; not so much imploying his faculties in the operose deductions of reason (the pleasant toyl of the rational faculties since the Fall) but had immediately imployed them about the sublimest objects, not about quiddities and formalities, but about him who was the fountain of his being, and the center of his happiness. There was not then so vast a difference between the Angelical and humane life: The Angels and men both fed on the same dainties, all the difference was, they were in the foreign, the upper room in heaven, and man in the Summer Parlour in Paradise.
If we take a view of mans knowledge as it respects his fellowcreatures, we shall find these were so fully known to him on Sect. 3.his first creation, that he needed not to go to School to the wide world to gather up his conceptions of them. For the right exercise of that Dominion which he was instated in over the inferiour world, doth imply a particular knowledge of the nature, being, and properties of those things which he was to make use of, without which he could not have improved them for their peculiar ends. And from this knowledge did proceed the giving the creatures those proper and peculiar names which were expressive of their several natures. For as Plato tells us, foreign: The imposition In Cratylo.of names on things belongs not to every one, but only to him that hath a full prospect into their several natures. For it is most agreeable to reason, that names should carry in them a suitableness to the things they express; for words being for no other end but to express our conceptions of things, and our conceptions being but foreign, as the same Philosopher speaks, the resemblances and representations of the things, it must needs follow, that where there was a true knowledge, the conceptions must agree with the things; and words being to express our conceptions, none are so fit to do it, as those which are expressive of the several natures of the things they are used to represent. For otherwise all the use of words is to be a meer vocabulary to the understanding, and an Index to memory, and of no further use in the pursuit of knowledge, then to let us know what words men are agreed to call things by. But something further seems to be intended in their first imposition, whence the Iews call it foreign as Mercer tells us, a separation and distinction In Gen. 2. 19.of the several kinds of things: and Kircher thus paraphraseth the words of Moses. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. i. e. saith Oedip. Egyp. Tom. 2. Class. 2. cap. 1.he, Fuerunt illis vera & germane nomina & rerum naturis propriè accommodata. But however this be, we have this further evidence of that height of knowledge which must be supposed in the first man, that as he was the first in his kind, so he was to be the standard and measure of all that followed, and therefore could not want any thing of the due perfections of humane nature. And as the shekel of the Sanctuary was, if not double to others, (as men ordinarily mistake) yet of a full and exact weight, because it was to be the standard for all other weights (which was the cause of its being kept in the Temple.) So if the first man had not double the proportion and measure of knowledge which his posterity hath, if it was not running over in regard of abundance, yet it must be pressed down and shaken together in regard of weight, else he would be a very unfit standard for us to judge by, concerning the due and suitable perfections of humane nature.
But we need not have run so far back as the first man to Sect. 4.evince the knowledge of truth to be the most natural perfection of the soul of man; for even among the present ruines of humane nature we may find some such noble and generous spirits, that discern so much beauty in the face of truth, that to such as should enquire what they find so attractive in it, their answer would be the same with Aristotles in a like case, it was foreign, the Question of those who never saw it. For so pleasing is the enquiry, and so satisfactory the finding of truth after the search, that the relish of it doth far exceed the greatest Epicurism of Apicius, or the most costly entertainments of Cleopatra; there being no Gust so exquisite as that of the mind, nor any Iewels to be compared with Truth. Nor do any persons certainly better deserve the name of men, then such who allow their reason a full employment, and think not the erectness of mans stature a sufficient distinction of him from Brutes. Of which those may be accounted only a higher species who can patiently suffer the imprisonment of their Intellectuals in a Dungeon of Ignorance, and know themselves to be men, only by those Characters by which Alexander knew himself not to be a God, by their proneness to intemperance and sleep. So strange a Metempsychosis may there be without any change of bodies, and Euphorbus his soul might become a Brute, without ever removing its lodging into the body of an Ass. So much will the soul degenerate from its self, if not improved, and in a kind of sullenness scarce appear to be what it is, because it is not improved to what it may be.
But if this knowledge of truth be so great, so natural, so Sect. 5. Object.valuable a perfection of humane nature, whence comes so much of the world to be over-run with Ignorance and Barbarism, whence come so many pretenders to knowledge, to court a cloud instead of Juno, to pretend a Love to truth, and yet to fall down and worship errour? If there were so great a sympathy between the soul and truth, there would be an impatient desire after it, and a most ready embracing and closing with it. We see the Magnet doth not draw the iron with greater force then it seems to run with impatience into its closest embraces. If there had been formerly so intimate an acquaintance between the soul and truth, as Socrates fancied of friends in the other world, there would be an harmonious closure upon the first appearance, and no divorce to be after made between them?
True, but then we must consider there is an intermediate state between the former acquaintance, and the renewal of Answ.it, wherein all those remaining characters of mutual knowledge are sunk so deep, and lie so hid, that there needs a new fire to be kindled to bring forth those latent figures, and make them again appear legible. And when once those tokens are produced of the former friendship, there are not more impatient longings▪ nor more close embraces between the touched needle and the Magnet, then there are between the understanding and discovered truth. But then withall, we are to consider that they are but few whose souls are awakened out of that Lethargy they are fallen into in this degenerate condition, the most are so pleased with their sleep, that they are loth to disturb their rest, and set a higher price upon a lazy Ignorance, then upon a restless knowledge. And even of those whose souls are as it were between sleeping and waking, what by reason of the remaining confusion of the species in their brains, what by the present dimness of their sight, and the hovering uncertain light they are to judge by, there are few that can put a difference between a meer phantasm and a real truth. Of which these rational accounts may be given, viz. Why so few pretenders to knowledge do light on truth.
First, Want of an impartial diligence in the search of it. Sect. 6.Truth now must be sought, and that with care and dilgence, before we find it; jewels do not use to lye upon the surface of the earth: Highways are seldom paved with gold; what is most worth our Finding, calls for the greatest search. If one that walks the streets should finde some inestimable jewel, or one that travels the road meet with a bag of gold, it would be but a silly design of any to walk the street, or travel the road in hopes to meet with such a purchase to make them rich. If some have happily light on some valuable truths when they minded nothing less then them, must this render a diligence useless in inquiries after such? No: Truth though she be so fair and pleasing as to draw our affections, is yet so modest as to admit of being courted, and it may be deny the first suit, to heighten our importunity. And certainly nothing hath oftner forbid the banes between the understanding and Truth inquired after, then partiality and preoccupation of Iudgement: which makes men enquire more diligently after the dowry then the beauty of Truth, its correspondency to their Interests, then its evidence to their understandings. An useful error, hath often kept the Keys of the mind for free admission, when important truths but contrary to their pre-conceptions or interests have been forbidden entrance. Prejudice is the wrong bias of the soul, that effectually keeps it from coming near the mark of truth, nay, sets it at the greatest distance from it. There are few in the world that look after truth with their own eyes, most make use of spectacles of others making, which makes them so seldom behold the proper lineaments in the face of Truth; which the several tinctures from education, authority, custom, and predisposition do exceedingly hinder men from discerning of.
Another reason why there are so few who find truth, when so many pretend to seek it, is, that near resemblance, which Sect. 7.Error often bears to Truth. It hath been well observed that Error seldom walks abroad the world in her own raiments, she always borrows something of truth, to make her more acceptable to the world. It hath been always the subtilty of grand deceivers to graft their greatest errors on some material truths, to make them pass more undiscernable to all such who look more at the root on which they stand, then on the fruits which they bring forth. It will hereafter appear how most of the grossest of the heathen errors have, as Plutarch saith of the Egyptian Fables, foreign, some faint and obscure resemblances of truth; nay more then so, as most pernicious weeds are bred in the fattest soyls; their most destructive principles have been founded on some necessary and important truths. Thus Idolatry doth suppose the belief of the existence of a Deity; and superstition the Immortality of the souls of men. The Devil could never have built his Chappels, but on the same ground whereon Gods Temples stood; which makes me far less wonder then many do, at the meeting with many expressions concerning these two grand truths in the writings of ancient Heathens, knowing how willing the devil might be to have such principles still owned in the world, which by his depraving of them might be the nourishers of Idolatry and Superstition. For the general knowledge of a Divine nature, supposing men Ignorant of the true God, did only lay a foundation to erect his Idolatrous Temples upon; and the belief of the souls surviving the body after death, without knowledge of the true way of attaining happiness, did make men more eager of imbracing those Rites and Ceremonies, which canie with a pretence of shewing the way to a blessed immortality.
Which may be a most probable reason why Philosophy and Idolatry did increase so much together as they did; for Sect. 8.though right reason fully improved would have overthrown all those cursed and Idolatrous practises among the Heathens, yet reason only discerning some general notions without their particular application and improvement, did only dispose the most ordinary sort of people to a more ready entertainment of the most gross Idolatry. For hereby they discerned the necessity of some kind of worship, but could not find out the right way of it, and therefore they greedily followed that which was commended to them, by such who did withall agree with them in the common sentiments of humane nature: Nay, and those persons themselves who were the great maintainers of these sublimer notions concerning God and the soul of man, were either the great instruments of advancing that horrid superstition among them, as Orpheus & Apollonius, or very forward Complyers with it, as many of the Philosophers were. Although withall it cannot be denied to have been a wonderful discovery of Divine providence, by these general notions to keep waking the inward senses of mens souls, that thereby it might appear when Divine Revelation should be manifested to them, that it brought nothing contrary to the common principles of humane nature, but did only rectifie the depravations of it, and clearly shew men that way, which they had long been ignorantly seeking after. Which was the excellent advantage the Apostle made of the Inscription on the Altar at Athens to the unknown God; Whom, saith he, ye ignorantly serve, him I declare Act. 17. 23.unto you. And which was the happy use the Primitive learned Christians made of all those passages concerning the divine nature and the Immortality of the souls of men, which they found in the Heathen Writers, thereby to evidence to the world that the main postulata or suppositions of Christian Religion were granted by their own most admired men: and that Christianity did not race out but only build upon those common foundations, which were entertained by all who had any name for reason.
Though this, I say, were the happy effect of this building Sect 9.errors on common truths to all that had the advantage of Divine revelation to discern the one from the other; yet as to others who were destitute of it, they were lyable to this twofold great inconvenience by it. First, for the sake of the apparent rottenness of the Superstructures to question the soundness of the foundations on which they stood. And this I doubt not was the case of many considerative heathens, who observing that monstrous and unreasonable way of worship obtaining among the heathen, and not being able by the strength of their own reason, through the want of divine revelation to deduce any certain instituted worship, they were shrewdly tempted to renounce those principles, when they could not but abhor the conclusions drawn from them; for there is nothing more usual then for men who exceedingly detest some absurd consequence they see may be drawn from a principle supposed, to reject the principle its self for the sake of that consequence, which it may be doth not necessarily follow from it, but through the shortness of their own reason doth appear to them to do so. Thus when the Intelligent heathen did apparently see that from the principles of the Being of God, and the Immortality of souls, did flow all those unnatural, and inhumane Sacrifices, all those absurd and ridiculous Rites, all those execrable and profane mysteries, out of a loathing the Immoralities and impieties which attended these, they were brought to question the very truth, and certainty of those principles which were capable of being thus abused.
And therefore I am very prone to suspect the Apology usually made for Protagoras, Diagoras, and such others of them Sect. 10.who were accounted Atheists, to be more favourable then true, viz. that they only rejected those heathen Deities, and not the belief of the Divine nature. I should think this account of their reputed Atheism rational, were it any wayes evident that they did build their belief of a Divine nature, upon any other grounds then such as were common to them with those whose worship they so much derided. And therefore when the Heathens accused the Christians of Atheism, I have full and clear evidence that no more could be meant thereby then the rejection of their way of worship, because I have sufficient Assurance from them that they did believe in a Divine nature, and an instituted Religion most suitable to the most common received notions of God, which they owned in opposition to all heathen worship. Which I find not in the least pretended to by any of the forementioned persons, nor any thing of any different way of Religion asserted, but only a destruction of that in use among them.
And although the case of Anaxagoras, Clazomenius, and the rest of the Ionicke Philosophers might seem very different Sect. 11.from Diagoras, Theodorus, and those beforementioned, because although they denied the Gods in vulgar repute to be such as they were thought to be (as Anaxagor as call'd the Sun foreign, a meer globe of fire, for which he was condemned at Athens to banishment, and sined five talents, De …. c. 1.yet the learned Vossius puts in this plea in his behalf, that he was one that asserted the creation of the world to flow from an eternal mind) although therefore, I say, the case of the Ionick Philosophers may seem far different from the others, because of their asserting the production of the world (which from Thales Milesius was conveyed by Anaeximander and Anaximenes to Anoxagoras) yet to one that throughly considers what they understood by their eternal mind, they may be sooner cleared from the imputation of Atheism, then irreligion. Which two certainly ought in this case to be distinguished; for it is very possible for men meeting with such insuperable difficulties, about the casual concourse of Atoms for the production of the world, or the eternal existences of matter, to assert some eternal mind, as the first cause of these things, which yet they may imbrace only as an hypothesis in Philosophy to solve the phoenomena of nature with, but yet not to make this eternal mind the object of adoration. And so their asserting a Deity, was only on the same account as the Tragedians used to bring in their foreign, when their Fables were brought to such an issue, and perplexed with so many difficulties that they saw no way to clear them again, but to make some God come down upon the Stage to selve the difficulties they were engaged in; or as Seneca saith of many great Families when they had run up their Genealogies so high that they could go no further, they then fetched their pedegree from the Gods: So when these Philosophers saw such incongruities in asserting an infinite and eternal series of matter, they might by this be brought to acknowledge some active principle which produced the world, though they were far enough from giving any religious worship to that eternal mind.
Thus even Epicurus and his followers would not stick to Sect. 12.assert the being of a God; so they might but circumscribe him within the heavens, and let him have nothing to do with things that were done on earth. And how uncertain the most dogmatical of them all were, as to their opinions concerning the being and nature of their geds, doth fully appear from the large discourses of Tully upon that subject: where is fully manifested their variety of opinions, and mutual repugnancies, their self contradictions and inconstancy in their own assertions; which hath made me somewhat inclinable to think that the reason why many of them did to the world own a Deity, was, that they might not be Martyrs …or Atheism: Which Tully likewise seems to acknowledge, when speaking of the punishment of Protagoras, for that speech of his, De diis neque ut sint, neque ut non sint, habeo dicere. Ex quo equidem existimo tardiores ad hanc sententiam profitendam De nat. Deor. l. 1 c. 63.multos esse factos, quippe cum poenam ne dubitatio quidem effugere potuisset. So that for all the verbal asserting of a Deity among them, we have no certain evidence of their firm belief of it, and much less of any worship and service they owed unto it. And though, it may be they could not totally excuss the notions of a Deity out of their minds, partly through that natural sense which is engraven on the souls of men, partly, as being unable to solve the difficulties of nature, without a Deity; yet the observing the notorious vanities of Heathen Worship might make them look upon it as a meer Philosophical speculation, and not any thing that had an influence upon the government of mens lives: For as in nature the observing the great mixture of falshood and truth made the Academicks deny any certain foreign, or rule of judging truth; and the Scepticks take away all certain assent; so the same consequence was nnavoidable here, upon the same principle; and that made even Plato himself so ambiguous and uncertain in his discourses of a Deity, sometimes making him an eternal mind, sometimes asserting the whole world, Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, Souls, and all to be Gods, and even those that were worshipped among the heathens as Tully tells us out of his Timaeus and de Legibus; which as Velleius the Epicurean there speaks, Et per se sunt falsa & sibi invicem repugnantia. This is the first inconvenience following the mixture of truth and falshood, for the sake of the falshood to question the truth its self it was joyned with.
The other is as great which follows, when truth and falshood are mixed, for the sake of the truth to embrace the falshood. Sect. 13.Which is a mistake as common as the other, because men are apt to think that things so vastly different as truth and falshood, could never blend, or be incorporate together; therefore when they are certain they have some truth, they conclude no falshood to be joyned with it. And this I suppose to have been the case of the more credulous and vulgar Heathen, as the other was of the Philosphers; for they finding mankind to agree in this, not only that there is a God, but that he must be worship'd, did without scruple make use of the way of worship among them, as knowing there must be some, and they were ignorant of any else. And from hence they grew to be as confident believers of all those fables and traditions on which their Idolatry was founded, as of those first principles and notions from which the necessity of divine worship did arise. And being thus habituated to the belief of these things, when truth it self was divulged among them, they suspected it to be only a corruption of some of their Fables. This Celsus the Epicurean on all occasions in his Books against the Christians did fly to. Thus he saith the building of the Tower of Babel, and the confusion Apad Orig. c. Cels. l. 4. p. 174, 179of Tongues, was taken from the fable of the Aloadae in Homers Odysses; the story of the Flood from Deucalion, Paradise from Alcinous his gardens, the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah from the story of Phaeton. Which Origen well resutes from the far greater antiquity of those relations among the Iewes, then any among the Greeks; and therefore the corruption of the tradition was in them, and not the Iews. Which must be our only way for finding out which was the Original, and which the corruption, by demonstrating the undoubted antiquity of one beyond the other, whereby we must do as Archimedes did by the crown of Hiero, find out the exact proportions of truth and falshood which lay in all those Heathen Fables.
And this now leads to the third account, why truth is so Sect. 14.hardly discerned from errour, even by those who search after it, which is the great obscurity of the History of Ancient Times, which should decide the Controversie. For there being an universal agreement in some common principles, and a frequent resemblance in particular traditions, we must of necessity, for the clearing the truth from its corruption, have recourse to ancient history, to see if thereby we can find out where the Original tradition was best preserved, by what means it came to be corrupted, and whereby we may distinguish those corruptions from the Truths to which they are annexed: Which is the design and subject of our future discourse, viz. to demonstrate that there was a certain original and general tradition preserved in the world concerning the oldest Ages of the world; that this tradition was gradually corrupted among the Heathens; that not withstanding this corruption there were sufficient remainders of it to evidence its true original; that the sull account of this tradition is alone preserved in those books we call the Scriptures: That where any other histery seems to cross the report contained in them, we have sufficient ground to question their credibility; and that there is sufficient evidence to clear the undoubted certainty of that histery which is contained in the sacred Records of Scripture. Wherein we shall observe the same method which Thales took in taking the height of the Pyramids, by measuring the length of their shadow; so shall we the height and antiquity of truth from the extent of the fabulous corruptions of it. Which will be a work of so much the greater difficulty, because the truth we pursue after takes covert in so great antiquity, and we must be forced to follow its most flying footsteps through the dark and shady paths of ancient history. For though history be frequently called the Light of Truth, and the Herald of Times, yet that light is so faint and dim, especially in Heathen Nations, as not to serve to discover the face of Truth from her counterseit Error; and that Herald so little skill'd, as not to be able to tell us which is of the Elder house. The reason is, though Truth be always of greater Antiquity, yet Errour may have the more wrinkled face, by which it often imposeth on such who guess antiquity by deformity, and think nothing so old as that which can give the least account of its own age. This is evidently the case of those who make the pretence of ancient history a plea for Insidelity, and think no argument more plausible to impugn the certainty of Divine Rev…lation with, then the seeming repugnancy of some pretended histories with the account of ancient time reported in the Bible. Which being a pretext so unworthy, & designed for solill an end, and so frequently made use of, by such who account Infidelity a piece of antiquity as well as reason, it may be worth our while to shew, that it is not more liable to be baffled with reason, then to be confuted by Antiquity.
In order therefore to the removing of this stumbling-block in our way, I shall first evince that there is no certain credibility Sect. 15.in any of those ancient histories which seem to contradict the Scriptures, nor any ground of reason why we should assent to them, when they differ from the Bible: and then prove that all those undoubted characters of a most certain and authentick historie are legible in those records contained in Scripture. Whereby we shall not only shew the unreasonableness of Infidelity, but the rational evidence which our faith doth stand on as to these things. I shall demonstrate the first of these, viz that there is no ground of assent to any ancient histories which give an account of things different from the Scriptures, from these arguments; the apparent desect, weakness, and insufficiency of them as to the giving an account of elder times; The monstrous confusion, ambiguity, and uncertainty of them in the account which they give; the evident partiality of them to themselves, and inconsistency with each other. I begin with the first of these, the defect and insufficiency of them to give in such an account of elder times as may amount to certain credibility; which if cleared, will of its self be sufficient to manifest the incompetency of those records, as to the laying any foundation for any firm assent to be given to them. Now this defect and insufficiency of those histories is either more general, which lies in common to them all, or such as may be observed in a particular consideration of the histories of those several Nations which have pretended highest to Antiquity.
The General defect is the want of timely records to preserve their histories in. For it is most evident, that the truest Sect. 16.history in the world is liable to various corruptions through length of time, if there be no certain way of preserving it entire. And that, through the frailty of memory in those who had integrity to preserve it, through the gradual increase of Barbarism and Ignorance, where there are no wayes of instruction, and through the subtilty of such whose interest it may be to corrupt and alter that tradition. If we find such infinite variety and difference of men, as to the histories of their own times, when they have all possible means to be acquainted with the truth of them; what account can we imagine can be given by those who had no certain way of preserving to posterity the most authentick relation of former Ages? Especially, it being most evident, that where any certain way of preserving tradition is wanting, a people must soon degenerate into the greatest stupidity and Barbarism, because all will be taken up in minding their own petty concerns, and no encouragement at all given to such publick spirits, who would mind the credit of the whole Nation. For what was there for such to employ themselves upon, or spend their time in, when they had no other kind of Learning among them, but some general traditions conveyed from Father to Son, which might be learned by such who followed nothing but domestick employments? So that the sons of Noah, after their several dispersions and plantations of several Countries, did gradually degenerate into Ignorance and Barbarism: for upon their first setling in any Countrey, they found it employment sufficient to cultivate the Land, and fit themselves habitations to live in, and to provide themselves of necessities for their mutual comfort and subsistence. Besides this, they were often put to removes from one place to another, where they could not conveniently reside (which Thucydides speaks much of as to the ancient state of Greece) and it was a great while before they came to imbody themselves together in Towns and Cities, and from thence to spread into Provinces, and to settle the bounds and extents of their Territories. The first age after the plantation of a Country being thus spent, the next saw it necessary to fall close to the work of husbandry, not only to get something out of the earth for their subsistence; but when by their diligence they had so far improved the ground, that they had no… only enough for themselves, but …o spare to others, they then found out a way for commerce one with ano her by Exchange. This way of traffick made them begin to raise their hopes higher of enriching themselves; which when some of them had done, they bring the poorer under their power and reign as Lords over them; these rich with their dependants strive to outvy each other, whence came wars & mutual contentions, till they who got the better over their adversaries, took still greater authority into their hands (thence at first every City almost, and adjacent Territory, had a King over it) which by conflicting with each other, at last brought several Cities and Territories under the power of one particular person, who thereby came to reign as sole Monarch over all within his dominions.
For although there be some reason to think that the Leaders of several Colonies had at first superiority over all that Sect. 17.went with them; yet there being evidence in few Nations of any continued succession of Monarchs from the posterity of Noah, and so great evidence of so many petty royalties almost in every City (as we read of such multitudes of Kings in the small territory of Canaan, when Ioshua conquered it) this makes it at least probable to me, that after the death of the first Leader, by reason of their poverty and dispersedness of habitations, they did not incorporate generally into any civil government under one head, but did rise by degrees in the manner before set down; but yet so that in the petty divisions some prerogative might be given to him who derived his pedigree the nearest from the first Founder of that plantation; which in all probability is the meaning of Thucydides, who tells us when the riches of Greece began to increase, and Lib. 1. b…st. p. 10. Ed. Port.their power improved, Tyrannies were erected in most Cities (foreign) for before that time Kingdoms with honours limited were hereditary) for so the Scholiast explains it, foreign. This then being the state and case of most Nations in the first ages after their plantation, there was no likelyhood at all of any great improvement in knowledge among them; nay so far from it, that for the first ages, wherein they conflicted with poverty & necessity, there was a necessary decay among them, of what knowledge had been conveyed to them; because their necessities kept them in continual employment; and after that they conquer'd them, they began to conquer each other, that till such time as they were setled in peace under established Common-wealths, there was no leisure, nor opportunity for any Arts and Sciences to flourish, without which all certain histories of their own former state must vanish and dwindle into some fabulous stories. And so we find they did in most nations, which thence are able to give no other account of themselves, but that they sprung out of the earth where they lived; from which opinion the Athenians used to wear of old their golden grashoppers, as Thucydides relates. What account can we then expect of ancient times from such Nations which were so defective in preserving their own Originals?
Now this defectiveness of giving testimony of ancient times Sect. 18.by these Nations, will further appear by these two considerations: First, what ways there are for communicating knowledge to posterity. Secondly, how long it was ere these Nations came to be Masters of any way of certain communicating their conceptions to their Successors. Three general ways there are whereby knowledge may be propagated from one to another, by representative symbols, by speech, and by letters. The first of these was most common in those elder times, for which purpose Clemens Alexandrinus produceth the testimony of Strom. 1. 5.an ancient Grammarian Dionysius Thrax in his Exposition of the symbol of the wheels: foreign: That some persons made a representation of their actions to others, not only by speech, but by symbols too. Which any one who is any ways conversant in the Learning of those ancient times, will find to have been the chief way of propagating it (such as it was) from one to another, as is evident in the Hieroglyphicks of the Aegyptians, and the custome of symbols from thence derived among the Graecian Philosophers, especially the Pythagoreans. It was the solemn custome of the Aegyptians to wrap up all the little knowledge they had under such mystical representations, which were unavoidably clogg'd with two inconveniences very unsuitable to the propagation of knowledge, which were obscurity and ambiguity: for it not only cost them a great deal of time to gather up such symbolical things which might represent their conceptions; but when they had pitched upon them, they were liable to a great variety of interpretations, as is evident in all those remainders of them, preserved by the Industry of some ancient Writers, as in their foreign, or golden Images of their Gods, they had ingraved two dogs, an hawk, and an Ibis. By the dogs some understood the two Hemisphaeres, others the two Tropicks; by the hawk some understood the Sun, others the Aequinoctial; by the Ibis some the Moon, others the Zodiack, as is evident in Clemens, who reports it. This way then is a most unfit way to convey any ancient tradition, by being both obscure, ambiguous, and unable to express so much as to give any certain light to future ages of the passages of the precedent.
The other ways of conveying knowledge, are either by speech, or by letters. The first must be by some vocal Cabala Sect. 19.delivered down from Father to Son; but words being of so perishing a nature, and mans memory so weak and frail in retaining them, it is necessary for a certain communication of knowledge, that some way should be found out more lasting then words, more firm then memory, more faithful then tradition: which could not otherwise be imagined, then that the Author of his own conceptions should himself leave them to the view of all posterity; in order to which, some way must be contrived whereby mens voices might be seen, and mens fingers speak. But how to express all kind of sounds, with the several draughts of a pen, and to confine them within the compass of 24 letters, is deservedly called by Galileo, admirandarum omnium inventionum humanarum signaculum, the choicest of all humane inventions. And had we no other evidence of the great obscurity of ancient history, the great difference as to the first inventer of letters, would be a sufficient demonstration of it. For almost every Nation hath had a several Author of them: The Iews derive them from Adam or Moses; the Egyptians attribute their invention to Thoyt or Mercury; the Grecians, to Cadmus, the Phoenicians to Taautus, the Latins to Saturn, others to the Aethiopians: And lest the Pygmies should be without their enemies, some think they were found out a gruum volatu, from the manner of the flying of cranes. Thus it hath happened with most Nations; what was first among themselves, they thought to be the first in the world.
But by whomsever they were first invented, we are certain they were but lately in use in that Nation, which hath most Sect. 19.vainly arrogated the most to its self in point of Antiquity, and yet had the least reason (I mean the Graecians.) Thence the Egyptian Priest Patenit truly told Solon the Greeks were Procl. in Tim. c. App. l. 1.always children, because they had nothing of the antiquities of former ages. If we may believe Iosephus, they had no writings earlier then Homer; but herein he is conceived to have served his cause too much, because of the Inscription of Amphytrio at Thebes in the Temple of Apollo Ismenius in the old Ionick letters, and two others of the same Hist. l. 5.age to be seen in Herodotus, and because of the writings of Lynus, Orpheus, Musaeus, Oroebantius, Traezenius, Thaletas, v. Boch. Geogr. p. 2. l. 1. c. 26.Melesander, and others. This we are certain of, the Grecians had not the use of letters among them till the time of Cadmus, the Phoenicians coming into Greece, whither he came to plant a Colony of Phoenicians there, whence arose Apud P…ot Biblioth. l. 37.the story of his pursuit of Europa, as Conon in Photius tels us.
And it is very probable which learned men have long since observed, that the name Cadmus comes from the Hebrew foreign and may relate as an appellative either to his dignity, as Iunius in his Academia conjectures, or more probably to his Country, the East, which is frequently call'd foreign in Scripture. Some have conjectured further, that his proper name was foreign, upon what reason I know not, unless from hence, that thence by a duplication of the word, came the Greek foreign, who seems to have been no other then Cadmus, as will appear by comparing their stories together. Only one was the name his memory was preserved by at Athens, where the Cadmeans inhabited, as appears by the Gephyraei whom Herodotus tells us were Phoenicians that came with Cadmus, (and others fancy the Academia there Hist. l. 5.was originally called Cadmea) and the name Cadmus was preserved chiefly among the Baeotians in memory of the Country whence he came: It being likely to be imposed by them upon his first landing in the Country, as many learned persons conceive the name of an Hebrew was given to Abraham by the Canaanites upon his passing over the river Euphrates. On this account then it stands to reason, that the name which was given him as a stranger, should be longest preserved in the place where it was first imposed. Or if we take foreign in the other sense, as it imports antiquity; so there is still a higher probability of the assinity of the names of Cadmus and Ogyges; for this is certain that the Greeks had no higher name for a matter of Antiquity then to call it foreign, as the Scholiast on Hesiod, Hesychius, Suidas, Eustathius on Dionysius, and many others observe. And which yet advanceth the probability higher, Lutatius or Lactantius the Scholiast on Statius, tells us, the other Greeks In Theb. l. 1had this from the Thebans; for saith he, Thebani res antiquas Ogygias nominabant. But that which puts it almost beyond meer probability is, that Varro, Festus, Pausanias, Apollonius, Aeschylus, and others make Ogyges the founder of the Baeotian Thebes, which were thence called Ogygiae; and Strabo and Stephanus foreign further say, that the whole Country of Baeotia was called Ogygia; now all that mention the Story of Cadmus, attribute to him the founding of the Baeotian Thebes. And withal it is observable that in the Vatican Appendix of the Greek, Proverbs, we Cent. 4. Prov. 52.read Cadmus called Ogyges; foreign. Meursius indeed would have it corrected, foreign, as it is read in Suidas; but by the favour of so learned a man, De Regno A…t. lib. 1. cap. 5.it seems more probable that Suidas should be corrected by that, he bringing no other evidence of any such person as Cadmus a son of Ogyges, but only that reading in Suidas, whereas we have discovered many probable grounds to make them both the same. That which I would now infer from hence is, the utter impossibility of the Greeks giving us any certain account of ancient times, when a thing so modern in comparison as Cadmus his coming into Greece, is thought by them a matter of so great antiquity, that when they would describe a thing very ancient, they described it by the name of Ogyges, who was the same with Cadmus. Now Cadmus his coming into Greece, is generally, by Historians, placed about the time of Ioshua, whence some (I will not say how happily) have conjectured, that Cadmus and his company were some of the Canaanites who fled from Ioshua, as others are supposed to have done into Africa, if Procopius his pillar hath strength enough to bear such a conjecture. But there is too great a confusion about the time of Cadmus his arrival in Greece, to affirm any thing with any great certainty about it.
Yet those who disagree to that former Computation, place it yet lower. Vossius makes Agenor, Cadmus his Father, cotemporary D… Idol. l. 1. …. 13.with the latter end of Moses, or the beginning of Ioshua; and so Cadmus his time must fall somewhat after. Iac. Capellus placeth Cadmus in the third year of Othoniel. Parius the Author of the Greek Chronicle, in the Marmora Arundelliana makes his coming to Greece to be in the time of Hellen the son of Deucalion; which Capellus fixeth on the 73. of Moses, A. M. 2995. But Mr. Selden conceives it somewhat lower: and so it must be, if we follow Clemens Alexandrinus, who placeth it in the time of Lynceus King of the Argives, which he saith was foreign, in the 11. Generation after Moses, which Strom. 1.will fall about the time of Samuel: But though it should be so late, it would be no wonder it should be reckoned a matter of so great antiquity among the Grecians; for the eldest Records they have of any King at Athens, begins at the time of Moses, whose co-temporary Cecrops is generally thought to be; for at his time it is the Parian Chronicle begins. Now that the Grecians did receive their very letters from the Phoenicians by Cadmus, is commonly acknowledged by the most learned of the Greeks themselves, as appears by the ingenuous confession of Herodotus, Philostratus, Critius in Athenaeus, Zenodotus in Laertius, Timon Philiasius in Sixtus Empiricus, and many others: so that it were to no purpose to offer to prove that, which they who arrogate so much to themselves, do so freely acknowledge. Which yet hath been done to very good purpose by Ioseph Scaliger and Not. in Euseb. Chron. n. 1617. Geogr. p. 2. l. 1. cap. 20.Bochartus, and many others from the form of the Letters, the order and the names of them. It seems probable that at first they might use the form of the Phoenician Letters, in which Herodotus tells us the three old Inscriptions were extant; and Diodorus tells us, that the brass pot which Cadmus offered to Minerva Lyndia, had an Inscription on it in the Phoenician Letters, but afterwards the form of the Letters came by degrees to be changed, when for their greater expedition in writing they left the old way of writing towards the left hand, for the more natural and expedite way of writing towards the right, by which they exchanged the site of the strekes in several Letters, as is observed by the forecited Learned Authors.
Not that the old Ionick Letters were nearer the Phoenician, and distinct from the modern, as Ios. Scaliger in his learned Discourse on the original of the Greek Letters conceives; b. in Euseb. n. 1617for the Ionick Letters were nothing else but the full Alphabet of 24. with the additions of Palamedes, and Simonides Cous, as Pliny tells us, that all the Greeks consented in the use of the Ionick Letters; but the old Attick Hist. l 7. cap. 57.Letters came nearer the Phoenician, because the Athenians, long after the Alphabet was increased to 24. continued still in the use of the old 16. which were brought in by Cadmus, which must needs much alter the way of writing; for in the old Letters, they writ THEO… for foreign, which made Pliny, with a great deal of learning and truth, say, that the old Greek Letters were the same with the Roman. Thence the Greeks called their ancient Letters foreign, as v. Ma…ssacū in Harpocr. Salmas. in Consecrat. Templ. p. 30.appears by Harpocration and Hesychius, not that they were so much distinct from others, but because they did not admit of the addition of the other eight Letters, which difference of writing is in a great measure the cause of the different dialect between the Athenians and Ionians properly so called.
We see then the very Letters of the Greeks were no elder Sect. 21.then Cadmus; and for any considerable learning among them, it was not near so old. Some assert indeed that History began from the time of Cadmus; but it is by a mistake of him for a younger Cadmus, which was Cadmus Milesius, whom Pliny makes to be the first Writer in Prose; but that he after attributes to Pherecydes Syrius, and History to Cadmus Nat. hist. l. 5. c. 29. l. 7. c. 56.Milesius: and therefore I think it far more probable, that it was some writing of this latter Cadmus, which was transcribed and epitomized by Bion Proconesius, although Clemens Alexandrinus seems to attribute it to the Elder. Strom. l. 6.We see how unable then the Grecians were to give an account of elder times, that were guilty of so much infancy and nonage, as to begin to learn their Letters almost in the noontide of the World, and yet long after this to the time of the first Olympiad all their relations are accounted fabulous. A fair account then we are like to have from them of the first antiquities of the world, who could not speak plain truth till the world was above 3000. years old; for so it was when the Olympiads began.
So true is the observation of Iustin Martyr, foreign): the Greeks had no exact history of themselves before the Olympiads; but of that more afterwards.
This is now the first defect which doth infringe the credibility of these Histories, which is the want of timely and early records to digest their own history in.