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he fays in his Timæus: "It is proper that I who speak, and that you who hear, fhould remember that we poffefs human nature only, and "that therefore we can merely look for fome probable fable or tradition. Nor is it lawful for "us to inquire further." '

As all things, according to the fcriptural account, were created by the word of God, the heathen had fome ideas on this head alfo. Thus Tertullian ; "Your wife men were of opinion, "that the Word and Wifdom, which they call

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Logos, framed the world. Zeno fays, That this "Word was the author of order." To the fame purpose the philofopher and poet Epicharmus; "From the Logos, or Reafon of God, the reafon "of man is derived." The language, quoted by fome ancient writers from the fongs afcribed to Orpheus, is very remarkable; "I call to witness "that voice of the Parent, which he first uttered when he founded the universe by his coun"fels b."

Sanchoniatho, the Phenician hiftorian, calls the first human pair Protogonus and Aeon. These, indeed, are only the Greek words, which Philo-Biblius, who tranflated Sanchoniatho's hiftory from the Phenician, ufes to exprefs the meaning of the names given them in the original. But it is generally admitted, that by these are meant Adam and Eve; as Protogonus fignifies firft-produced, and Aeon, or Awv, life. The latter bears a near refemblance to Eve, both in fenfè G 3

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and found. For Havah, in Hebrew, fignifies life, or living. "The first men," he fays, " were made "from the xoλ of the wind." It has been fuppofed with the greatest probability, that the word ROATIA is formed from the Hebrew

5p, Kol-pijah, the voice of the mouth of the Lord. If this be admitted, the phrafe has a meaning; for it evidently respects the formation of man by the word and infpiration of the Almighty. If not, no reasonable idea can be affixed to the language. Is it supposed that fome peculiar virtue is here afcribed to the wind? Would this make the fyftem more rational? Can the wind animate dead clay? Is it not far more natural to afcribe the creation of man to God, than to the action of the wind and therefore far more natural to fuppofe, that the former is the original idea, and the latter only a corruption of it?

The ancient heathen reprefented the first man as partaking of both fexes. They therefore called him audeoyuvos, literally man-woman. This evidently alludes to what we have in Scripture. But it will readily occur to every reafonable perfon, that the fcriptural doctrine of the woman being formed immediately by divine power out. of a part of the fubftance of the man, has far more intrinfic evidence of having been the original doctrine, than that of one perfon poffeffing both fexes, and thus having a natural power of individual procreation, a power to which there is nothing analogous in nature.

According

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According to Sanchoniatho, Eve found out the food which is gathered from trees. Here, undoubtedly, there is a traditionary reference to that fatal discovery which was first made by the woman; when "fhe faw that the tree was good "for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes "." The name of Eve is alfo fuppofed to have been preferved in the Grecian worship. Grotius obferves, that in the most ancient mysteries of the Greeks, the exclamation Eua was used, and a ferpent shown at the fame time b.

There are various traditions preferved among the heathen, which are evidently corruptions of the important hiftory of the FALL. "The Brach"mans of Perfia," fays M. Bayle, " give a va"riety of accounts concerning a great giant, who "was placed in a beautiful garden, which, upon "certain conditions, he was to poffefs for ever. "But one evening, when it was duskish, an evil " spirit or devil came to tempt him, and offered "him a vaft fum of money; which he refolutely

refused, not knowing the value of it. But at "laft the devil brought him a woman, with whom "he was fo charmed, that, not any longer obfer"ving the conditions propofed to him, he was "expelled from the garden c." We need not

wonder that the hiftory of the fall has been fo corrupted by heathens, when many Chriftians have explained it much in the fame manner; fuppofing

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b Grot. de Verit. not. ad lib. i. fect. 16.

Fabricii Col. Apoc. Vet. Test. vul. j. p. 102.

fuppofing moft abfurdly, that the eating of the tree of knowledge allegorically reprefents the connexion of the fexes, as if this had been incompatible with a state of innocence.

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Maimonides gives a particular account of various works of the idolatrous Sabii, who lived in India and other countries. He fays, that "they all belie"ved that the first Adam was procreated of man "and woman, like the reft of men; that, notwithstanding, they highly extolled him, afferting that he was the Apoftle of the Moon, and "called men to her worship; and that he compofed fome books on the culture of the earth." He warns his reader against being misled by the accounts given in the books of these idolaters, faying; "As to what they relate concerning the "firft Adam, the ferpent, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and garments which were "not formerly in ufe; beware, left it carry away thy understanding, and thou fhouldest apprehend that thefe things happened either to “Adam, or to any other." Here he refers to the following fabulous account, contained in one of their writings: "It is there narrated," he fays, "that the firft Adam wrote in his book, "that there is a certain tree in India, whofe "branch, when fallen to the earth, creeps like a

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ferpent; that there is another tree, whofe root "has a human form, and a powerful voice, and "utters distinct words; alfo, that there is a cer"tain herb, which, if it be taken and fufpended in the neck; renders a man invisible, so that it 66 cannot

"cannot be perceived into what place he enters, "nor whence he departs; but that if it be burnt "as incenfe in the open air, the most tremen"dous noifes and thunders are heard in the ad

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jacent atmosphere, as long as the fmoke af "cends a." Although Maimonides feems to have been ignorant of the circumstance, they seem to have accommodated their fable to the natural hiftory of that famous tree in India, called the Banyan tree, the branch of which, when fallen to the earth, might indeed be faid to creep like a ferpent.

Grotius afferts, that the fame hiftory of the fall is found among the inhabitants of Pegu, and other idolatrous nations of India; and that the Bramins are acquainted with the name of Adam 1. In the Ifland of Ceylon, in the neighbourhood of the Peninsula of India, they pretend to point out the footsteps of Adam on a mountain called Pico de Adam. The inhabitants make a religious proceffion round this mountain yearly. The eaftern tradition is, that when Adam was driven out of Paradise, he fled to Ceylon, and did penance for feveral years on this mountain.

So ftriking, in a variety of inftances, is the refemblance between the facred hiftory of thefe events, and the heathen traditions, that a believer could hardly with it greater. Did they perfectly agree, inftead of confirming, it would weaken the evidence of the neceffity of revelation. For

b Ibid.

a More Nevochim Par. iii. c. 29. < Fabricii Cod. Vet. Test. p. 30.; Eutych. Annal. ap. Univ. Hist. i. 149.

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