IV. But whether all or any of these ways be sufficient and CHAP. satisfactory, we have yet cause to believe that there was a more than ordinary multiplication in the poste- Dissert. de rity of Noah after the flood. 3. If we embrace the account of those copies which the Septuagint followed in their version, all this difficulty is then ceased. For that account doth very much enlarge the times, and makes almost a thousand years between the flood and Abraham; by which means there will be sufficient space given for the propagation of mankind, the building of the tower of Babel, the dispersion of nations, the founding the Assyrian empire, the plantation of Egypt, China, and other places; all which seem to have been in that time, and to concur with that computation, as well as Josephus doth, and the whole primitive church before Jerome, which certainly ought in no case to be disregarded. Horn. Def. Ætat. Mun di, c. 26. The whole controversy concerning this part of the chronology of the world comes at last to this: Whether it be more probable that the Jews, who lived under the second temple, (who then were the trustees to whom were committed the oracles of God,) whom the LXX. followed in their version, had the true reading, or the Talmudic Jews, after their dispersion and banishment from their country, when they were discarded by God himself from being his people, when he broke up house among them at the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. But if the reader desire further satisfaction concerning this difference of the chronology of the LXX. from that of the present He- Walton Proleg. ad brew copies, he may consult the learned dissertation Bibl. Polyg. c. 9. sect. of the late learned bishop of Chester upon the LXX. 58, 63, &c. and the later discourses of Isaac Vossius on this sub-Isaac Vosject. Setting aside then the controversy between the LXX. Inpresent Hebrew copies and the LXX. in point of in-tat. Mundi. sius de terpr. et Æ Raleigh's Hist. p. i. b. ii. c. 1. sect. 7. BOOK tegrity and incorruption, which I meddle not with, I III. cannot but subscribe to the judgment of our judicious Sir Walter historian, sir Walter Raleigh: That if we look over all, and do not hastily satisfy our understanding with the first things offered, and thereby being satiated do slothfully and drowsily sit down, we shall find it more agreeable rather to follow the reckoning of the LXX. who, according to some editions, make it above 1072 years between the flood and Abraham's birth, than to take away any part of those 352 years given. For if we advisedly consider the state and countenance of the world, such as it was in Abraham's time, yea before Abraham was born, we shall find that it were very ill done of us, by following opinion without the guide of reason, to pare the time over deeply between Abraham and the flood; because in cutting them too near the quick, the reputation of the whole story might perchance bleed thereby, were not the testimony of the Scriptures supreme, so as no objection can approach it; and that we did not follow withal this precept of St. Austin, that wheresoever any one place in the Scriptures may be conceived disagreeing to the whole, the same is by ignorance of misinterpretation understood. For in Abraham's time all the then known parts of the world were peopled; all regions and countries had their kings. Egypt had many magnificent cities, and so had Palestine and all bordering countries; yea all that part of the world besides, as far as India: and those not built with sticks, but of hewn stones, and defended with walls and rampiers; which magnificence needed a parent of more antiquity than those other men have supposed. And therefore where the Scriptures are plainest, and best agreeing with reason and nature, to what end should we labour to beget doubts and scruples, or draw all things into IV. wonders and marvels? giving also strength thereby CHAP. to common cavillers, and to those men's apish brains, who only bend their wits to find impossibilities and monsters in the story of the world and mankind. Thus far that excellent historian, whose words deserve consideration. Thus much for the first objection. The second is, From the great pretence of several nations that they were self-originated, or came not from any other place. This was the pretence of the Egyptians, Grecians, ancient inhabitants of Italy, and others. But how little reason we have to give credit to these pretences, will appear on these accounts: 1. The impossibility in nature that mankind should be produced in such a way as they imagined; which we have manifested already in our discourse of the origin of the universe. 2. That the nations which pretended this, were never able to give sufficient evidence of it to any other nation which demanded it; which is manifest by their want of any certain records of their ancient times; which is fully proved in our discourse in the first book of the want of credibility in the heathen histories. 3. The only probable reason which induced these nations to make themselves Aborigines, was, because they supposed themselves to be the first inhabitants of the countries they lived in; which although I may allow to the Egyptians, and some other ancient nations, yet I cannot do it to the Hellens or Greeks, who most vainly and arrogantly pretend to it. Which because it may give more light into the greatest antiquities of Greece, and some other nations, than hath been yet discovered or taken notice of; and because it may further tend to clear the truth of the Scriptures as to the origin of nations, I shall more particularly inquire into the first plantation of Greece. That it was first inhabited by some of Noah's X. But BOOK posterity, is out of question with all those who prefer III. the most ancient and undoubted records of Scripture before the fabulous impostures of men's brains. by whose immediate posterity the country of Greece was first inhabited, is not yet so clear as it hath been generally presumed to be, by most who had rather follow the dictates of others, than spend time in such inquiries themselves; which yet certainly are so far from being unworthy men's labour and industry, that nothing tends more clearly to advance the truth of Scripture-history, than the reconciling the antiquities of the elder nations to what we find delivered of the plantation of the world from the posterity of Noah. As to this particular, therefore, of the first plantation of Greece, I shall first propound the opinion generally embraced among learned men, and then shew how far it is defective, and what other more true account may be given of it. It is evident from Moses, Gen. x. 5, that the posterity of Japhet took possession of the isles of the Gentiles, i. e. according to the Hebrew idiom, not only such as are properly so called, but all those countries which lay much upon the sea, being at any distance from Palestine, especially such as lay between the ocean and Mediterranean sea; and so both Greece and Italy come under the name of the isles of the Gentiles. Among the sons of Japhet, none is conceived so probable to have first peopled Greece, as he whose name was preserved among the inhabitants of Greece, with very little alteration; and so as the Medes from Madai, the Assyrians from Assur, the Thracians from Thiras, by the like analogy the Ionians from Javan. From which it is observable, that although among the Greeks themselves the Ionians were but as one division of that people which inhabited Greece, yet other nations comprehended all under the name of Ionians. IV. Ιαννι. Schol. in For which we have sufficient evidence from Hesychius, CHAP. and the Scholiast on Aristophanes. Οἱ βάρβαροι τοὺς Oi "Exλnvas "lavas Aéycvon, saith Hesychius; and more to Hesych. v. this purpose the Scholiast speaks. Πάντας τοὺς Ἕλληνας Acharnen. Ἰάονας οἱ βάρβαροι ἐκάλουν. For Ἰάονες, with the inser- Aristoph. tion of the Æolic digamma, (which is always done when two vowels meet,) is 'lápoves, i. e. Javones; and Stephanus Byzantius tells us, that from 'láv comes Stephanus 'Iv, and so Homer, Ενθα δὲ Βοιωτοὶ, καὶ άονες ἑλκεχίτωνες. And Dionysius Periegetes reckons up 'láwv as one of the rivers of Arcadia, Ἔνθα μέλας, ὅθι Κρᾶθις, ἵνα ῥέει ὕγρος Ἰάων. de Urb. v. Ἰών. Iliad. v. 685. Dionys. v. 416. And which much confirms this opinion, the Hebrew ed. Oxon. word for Javan, before the points added by the Ma But sorites, viz. bears a perfect analogy with the Greek Iv; and 8 in Scripture is taken for Greece; and so Dan. viii. 21, Alexander is called, which the LXX. render Baoiλeùs 'Eλλývwv; and Joel iv. 6, You have sold my sons to the sons of Javan, i. e. to the Greeks, as it is generally understood. as Javan cannot be supposed to have come into these parts without his family, so it is generally presumed that there are no obscure footsteps left of Javan's eldest son, Elisha's seating himself in Greece. For from him Josephus derives the name Alwλeis, with whom the Jerusalem paraphrast concurs. Montanus from thence Ar. Mout. derives the name Elis; from whence he supposeth the p. 24. Greeks are called "Exλnves. Bochartus finds the clearest remainders of Elisha in Elis, the same with Peloponnesus, one part of which by Homer is called Alisium; thence Ezek. xxvii. 7, we read of the purple and scarlet from the isles of Elisha, which makes it most probable to be that part of Greece which lay upon the Ionian sea, where the best purple next to the Tyrian Phaleg. |