III.

c. Juliau.

Clemens

Pæd. 1. i.

BOOK rians attribute the flood to Xisuthrus, whom they supposed to be a king of Assyria: but the circumstances Apud Cyr. of the story, as delivered by Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus, are such as make it clear to be only a remainder of the universal flood, which happened in the time of Noah. So the Thessalians make Prometheus to be the Protoplast; the Peloponnesians Phoroc. 8. p. 138. neus, as Clemens Alexandrinus tells us, whom Phoronides the poet calls πατέρα τῶν ἀνθρώπων, The Father of Mankind. This may be now the first way of corrupting the ancient tradition, by supposing all that was conveyed by it to have been acted among themselves; which may be imputed partly to their ignorance of the state of their ancient times, and partly to their pride, lest they should seem to be behind others in matters of antiquity.

ed. Oxon.

2. Another fountain of heathen mythology, was the taking the idiom of the oriental languages in a proper sense. For whether we suppose the ancient traditions were conveyed to them in the ancient Hebrew by the Pelasgi, or were delivered to them by the Phoenicians, or were fetched out of the Scriptures themselves, (as some suppose, though improbably, of Homer and some ancient poets,) yet all these several ways agreeing in this, that the traditions were oriental, we thereby understand how much of their mythology came by taking the Hebrew in a proper and literal sense, without attending to the idiom of the tongue. From hence Bochartus hath ingeniously fetched many heathen fables. Thus when Noah is said to be which in the idiom of the Hebrew only signifies a husbandman, they took it in a proper sense for ap Tsys, and thence Saturn, who was the same with Noah, (as will appear afterwards,) is made by mythologists the husband of Rhea; which was the same

TNT vs Gen. ix. 20,

V.

with the earth. So the giants making war against CHAP. heaven, was only a poetical adumbration of the design at the building of Babel, whose top in the Scripture is said to reach wa, which in the Hebrew signifies only a great height; but to aggrandize the story, was Gen. xi. 4. taken in the literal interpretation, that they attempted heaven. So when they are said to fight against the gods, Bochartus thinks it might be taken from that phrase of Nimrod, that he was a mighty hunter, »»↳ , before the Lord we render it, but it sometimes signifies against the Lord. So what Abydenus saith of the giants, that they were eκ Tñs yñs áváoxovtes, those Ap. Euseb. that came out of the earth, is supposed to be taken 1. ix. c. 14. from that phrase, Gen. x. 11, x 8 1, è terra ipsa exiit. But far more likely and probable is that which learned men are generally agreed in concerning Bacchus's being born of Jupiter's thigh, which is only an expression of that Hebraism 1, wherein coming Gen. xlvi. out of the thigh is a phrase for ordinary procreation.

Præp. Ev.

26.

3. A third way observable, is the alteration of the names in the ancient tradition, and putting names of like importance to them in their own language. Thus Jupiter, who was the same with Cham, was called Zeus Tapà Thy Léon, as on from on fervere, incalescere. ̓Αμμοῦν γὰρ Αἰγύπτιοι καλέουσι τὸν Δία, saith Herodotus ; him whom the Greeks call Zeùs, the Egyptians call Cham. So Japhet, whose memory was preserved under Neptune, to whose portion the islands in the sea fell, was called by the Greeks Пlored, which comes (saith Bochartus) from the Punic, which signi- Bochart. fies large and broad, which is the very importance of 1. i. c. I. the Hebrew ; thence, in allusion to the name, it is said, Gen. ix. 27, na ombx n, God shall enlarge Japhet. Thence the epithets of Neptune are Evpúστερνος, Εὐρύοψ, Εὐρυκρείων, all equally alluding to the

Phaleg.

BOOK name Japhet. So 'Aróλλwv, in the Greek, is of the III. same importance with the Hebrew, T, Damon, from

TTV, to destroy. Thence we read, Deut. xxxii. 17, they sacrificed, to devils. Canaan in the Hebrew signifies a merchant; thence Mercury, under whom the memory of Canaan, the son of Cham, was preserved, is derived by many from 5, to sell. Ceres, which was the inventress of agriculture, from wa, which imports bread-corn. These and many others are produced by Vossius, Heinsius, Bochartus, and other learned men, which I insist not on, because my design is only digitos ad fontes intendere, and to make these handsome and probable conjectures argumentative to our purpose, and to bind up those loose and scattering observations into some order and method, in which they have not yet appeared, nor been improved to that end which I make use of them for.

When the oriental phrases were ambiguous and equivocal, they omitted that sense which was plain and obvious, and took that which was more strange and fabulous. From hence the learned Bochartus hath fetched the fable of the Golden Fleece, which was nothing else but robbing the treasury of the king of Colchis; but it was disguised under the name of the Golden Fleece, because the Syriac word N signifies both a fleece and a treasury. So the bulls and dragons that kept it were nothing but the walls and brazen gates; for signifies both a bull and a wall, and un, brass and a dragon. And so the fable of the brass bull in the mountain of Tabyrus, which foretold calamities, arose from the equivocation of the Phoenician or Hebrew words wn, which signify either doctor, augur, or bos ex ære, a foreteller of events, or a brazen bull. From the like ambiguity of the word arose the fable of Jupiter stealing Eu

..V.

Canaan.

ropa in the form of a bull, because the word either sig- CHAP. nifies a ship, in which he conveyed her away, or a bull; or it may be the ship had zapáσnμov bovis, as the ship St. Paul sailed in had Castor and Pollux; it being usual to call their ships by the names of the signs they carried. From the like equivocation in the Phoe-Bochart. nician language doth Bochartus fetch many other hea-1. i. c. 28. then fables, in his excellent piece de Phoenicum Coloniis; as particularly that of Arethusa coming from Alpheus, which was from a ship, because it was not far from an excellent haven. And so he makes the Chimæra to be no more than a mere ens rationis; for he takes the Chimæra which Bellerophon conquered, to be only the people of Solymi under the three generals, Aryus, Trosibis, and Arsalus; that signifies a lion; Trosibis was Nm wx, the head of a serpent; Arsalus was, a young kid; and so the Ibid. 1. i. Chimera consisted of the form of a lion, a goat, and c. 6.

a serpent. Thus we see how easy a matter it was to advance the heathen mythology from the equivocation of the oriental languages, in which their traditions were conveyed to them.

VI.

5.

But yet a more prolific principle of mythology was by attributing the actions of several persons to one, who was the first or the chief of them. Thus it was in the stories of Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, Mercury, Minerva, Juno, Bacchus, and Hercules; which were a collection of the actions done by a multitude of persons, which were all attributed to one person. So Voss. de Vossius tells us, before the time of the Trojan wars, most of their kings, who were renowned and powerful, were called Joves. Now when the actions of all these were attributed to one Jupiter of Crete, they must needs swell his story up with abundance of fables. Vossius hath taken a great deal of pains to di

Idol. l. i.

III.

Nat. Deor.

BOOK gest, in an historical manner, the stories of the several Jupiters; whereof he reckons two Argives, a third the father of Hercules, a fourth a king of Phrygia, and two more of Crete; to one of which, without any distinction, the actions of all the rest were ascribed, and who was worshipped under the name of Jupiter. And so besides the ancient Neptune, who was the same with Japhet, they sometimes understood any insular prince, or one that had great power at sea: but besides these, there were two famous Neptunes among the Greeks; the one of Athens, the other the builder of the walls of Troy. Now the stories of all these being mixed together, must needs make a strange confusion. So for Mars, besides that ancient one they had by the oriental tradition, they had a Spartan, Thracian, and Arcadian Mars. What abundance of Cicero de Mercuries are we told of by Tully; and of no less than five Minervas! Every angry, scornful, jealous queen would fill up the fables of Juno; who was equally claimed by the Argives and Samians. What contests were there between the Greeks and Egyptians, concerning the country of Bacchus, or Liber Pater, whose story was made up of many patches of the oriental story, as will appear afterwards. The same may be said of Hercules. Now what a strange way was this to increase the number of fables! When they had one whose memory was anciently preserved among them, they attributed the actions of all such to him, who came near him in that which his memory was most remarkable for: and in those things which they did retain of the eastern tradition, it was an usual thing to confound persons, places, and actions together. So the story of Enoch and Methuselah is joined together Steph. V. by Stephanus de Urbibus, under the name of "Avvakos, who is there said to live above 300 years (which agrees

1. ii.

Ικόνιον.