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II.

For this opinion of Thales seems to have been part of CHAP. that universal tradition which was continued in the. world concerning the first principles of things; for I do not see any reason to aver, with so much confidence as some do, that those philosophers who spake any thing consonantly to Moses, must presently converse with the Jews, transcribe their opinions out of the Scriptures, or have them conveyed to them in some secret cabala of the creation, as it is affirmed of Pythagoras and Plato, and may with no less reason of Thales. But this I suppose may be made evident to any considerative person, that those philosophers of Greece, who conversed most abroad in the world, did speak far more agreeably to the true account of things, than such who only endeavoured by their own wits to improve or correct those principles which were delivered by the other philosophers; which I impute not so much to their converse with the Mosaic writings, as to that universal tradition of the first ages of the world, which was preserved far better among the Phœnicians, Egyptians, Chaldeans, and others, than among the Greeks. For which we have this evident reason, that Greece was far more barbarous and rude in its elder times, than those other nations were, which had means of preserving some monuments and general reports of the first ages of the world, when the Grecians wanted them: and therefore we find that Greece, from its beginning, shined with a borrowed light; and saw not by an extramission of rays of knowledge from itself, but by an intromission of those representations of things which were received from other nations. Those who formed Greece first into civil societies, and licked it into the shape of well ordered commonwealths, were such who had been traders for knowledge into foreign parts. To which purpose Diodorus Siculus informs

Diodorus,

seling.

Præp.

Evangel.

1. x.

BOOK us, that Lycurgus and Solon, as well as the poets OrIII. -pheus, Musaus, Melampus, and Homer, and the phiL.i. c. 96. losophers, afterwards Pythagoras, Plato, and others, ed. Wes- had gained most of their knowledge and wisdom out V. Euseb. of Egypt; nay, he saith in general, co тwv пар' "Eλλŋoi δεδοξασμένων ἐπὶ συνέσει καὶ παιδείᾳ, παρέβαλον εἰς Αἴγυπτον ἐν τοῖς ἀρχαίοις χρόνοις, ἵνα τῶν ἐνταῦθα νομίμων καὶ παιδείας με Táoxwow. All those who were renowned among the Greeks for wisdom and learning, did in ancient time resort to Egypt, to be acquainted with their laws and knowledge. On this account, therefore, we are not to seek for the ancient and genuine tradition of the world from the native and homebred Greeks, such as Aristotle and Epicurus, but from those who took the pains themselves to search into those records which were preserved among the elder and more knowing nations and although the nations they resorted to sought to advance their own reputation in the histories of their ancient times, of which we have already given a large account, yet they were more faithful in the account they gave of the origin of the whole universe. For it appears from Diogenes Laertius, that the Egyptians did conDiog. La- stantly believe that the world had a beginning, and was corruptible; that it was spherical, and the stars were of the nature of fire; that the soul was of an immortal nature, and did pass up and down the world: which Laertius cites from Hecatæus and Aristagoras. So that we need not make Pythagoras acquainted with such a cabala of the creation, which in all probability neither the Jews nor he ever dreamt of: we find a fair account may be given of most of the opinions of Pythagoras, and whence he derived them, without forcing the words of Moses into such a sense, which the plainness and perspicuity of the writings of Moses argue them not capable to admit of. But I will

ert. Procem.

P. 7.

not deny, from those concurrent testimonies of Her- CHAP.

II.

apud Ebræ

Sectis Phi

mippus and Aristobulus, besides Origen, Porphyry, V. Selden Clemens Alexandrinus, and others, that Pythagoras de JureNat. might have had an opportunity of conversing with the et Gen. Jews, (which it is most probable was in Chaldæa, after os, l. i. c. 2. the captivity, at which time Pythagoras was there among them;) but that Pythagoras should converse with the successors of Elisha on Mount Carmel, as Vossius thinks; or that Moschus, the Sidonian philo-Voss. de sopher, in Iamblichus, should be Moses, as others losoph. c. 6. fancy; or that preexistence of souls should be part of sect. 5. the Mosaic cabala; or that the Pythagoric numbers, as they are explained by Nicomachus Gerasenus in Photius, should be adequate to the days of the creation, cabalistically understood, are fancies too extravagant and Pythagorean to be easily embraced. If Pythagoras was circumcised, it was more for love of the Egyptians than the Jews, among whom he spent twenty-two years; if preexistence of souls be a rational hypothesis, we may thank the Egyptians for it, and not Moses; if numbers be so expressive of the work of creation, we are beholden to the arithmetical hieroglyphics of Egypt for them. But although Py- V. Mathem. thagoras might not be acquainted with such a philo-Kircheri, sophic cabala of the creation, which none of the Jews, Edip. as far as we can find, understood, till one more versed Egypt. in Plato and Pythagoras, than in the learning of his own nation, viz. Philo of Alexandria, began first to exercise his wit on the text of Moses, with Platonic notions; yet I shall easily grant that Pythagoras, by means of his great industry and converse with the learned nations, might attain to far greater knowledge of many mysterious things in natural philosophy, and as to the origin of the universe, than any of the homebred philosophers of Greece, or it may be, than any

Hierogl.

tom. iii.

III.

BOOK one of the nations he resorted to, because he had the advantage of comparing the several accounts of them together, and extracting out that which he judged the Plutarch.de best of them. And hence Plutarch tells us, that the first principles of the world, according to Pythagoras, ed. Franc. were these two : the one was τὸ ποιητικὸν αἰτίον καὶ εἰδικὸν

Plac. Phi

los. l. i.

cap. 3.

III.

V. Thalet.

p. 9.

ed. Lond.

Plato in

Tim. p. 1047.

ed. Ficini.

(ŐTTEρ éσTì vous ó Deòs), an active and forming principle, and that was God, whom he called mind (as Anaxagoras likewise did;) the other was τὸ παθητικόν τε καὶ ὑλικὸν (ὅπερ ἐστὶν ὁ ὁρατὸς κόσμος), passive and material, which is, the visible world.

And thus we see these two renowned founders of the Ionic and Italic societies of philosophers, both giving their concurrent testimony with Moses as to the true origin of the world, and not at all differing from Diog. Laer. each other; for thus Thales speaks in Diogenes Laertius, πρεσβύτατον τῶν ὄντων θεός· ἀγέννητον γάρ. κάλλιστον κόσμος· ποίημα γὰρ θεοῦ. God is the eldest Being, because unbegotten; the world the most beautiful, because it is God's workmanship. To which those expressions of Plato, in his Timæus, come very near, (whose philosophy was, for substance, the same with the Pythagorean,) when he had before ascribed the production of the world to the goodness of God; which goodness of his did incline him to make all other things like himself. Θέμις οὔτ ̓ ἦν οὔτ ̓ ἔστι τῷ ἀρίστῳ δρᾶν ἄλλο πλὴν τὸ KáλMOTOV. For the most excellent Being cannot but produce the most excellent effects. And as to the material principle out of which the world was made, there appears no great difference between the dwp of Thales, and the aŋ of Plato and Pythagoras; for Plato, when he tells us what a kind of thing the material principle was, he describes it thus, οὐχ ἡσυχίαν ἄγον, ἀλλὰ κινούμενον Chalcid. tλŋμμedãs kai átákтws, which, as Chalcidius renders it, ed. Meurs, is motu importuno fluctuans, neque unquam quiescens,

Tim. p. 24.

II.

not. in l. i.

Christ. Rel.

it was a visible corporeal thing (Tãv őσov v spaτóv) CHAP. which was never at rest, but in continual disorderly motion and agitation: which is a full explication, I suppose, of what Thales meant by his water, which is the same with that iùs, or mixture of mud and water together, which others speak of as the principle of the universe; as Orpheus in Athenagoras, and the scholiast on Apollonius, cited by Grotius and others. Which Grot. Anwe have the more reason to believe, because the succes- de Ver. sors of Thales, Anaximander and Anaxagoras,"express themselves to that purpose. Anaximander called the sea, τῆς πρώτης ὑγρασίας λείψανον, the remainder of the primitive moisture: and Anaxagoras says, before the Nous, or God, set things in their order, πávτα Xpýμata žv óμoũ πepupμéva, all things were at first confused together; which must needs make that which Chalcidius Chalcid. in Tim. p.394. tells us Numenius attributes to Pythagoras, which his translator calls sylvam fluidam, or fluid matter. Which is the same likewise with the Phoenicians' Mor, which, as appears by Eusebius, some call iv, others idarádovs Euseb. μížews oñųw, some, mud or slime, others, the putrefac- Evang. 1. i. tion of watery mixtures, which they say was σropa C. 10. κτίσεως, καὶ γένεσις τῶν ὅλων, the seed-plot of the creation, and the generation of things. Thus we see how Thales, with the Phoenicians, from whom he was derived, as Laertius tells us, and Pythagoras, with the Egyptians and others, concur with Moses, not only in the production of the world, but in the manner of it, wherein is expressed a fluid matter, which was the material principle out of which the world was formed; when we are told, that the earth was without form and void, Gen. i. 2. and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, i. e. that all at first was but fluid matter; for P. Fagius, from R. Kimchi, renders л by λŋ, which fluid matter was agitated and moved by the Divine

ed. Par.

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