II.

they will convey to us only the idea of ex- CHAP. clufive locality. We may indeed be occafionally ftruck with fome partial refemblance between them and the Mofaical hiftory; yet the impreffion will foon be obliterated, when we find, to all appearance, that the facts took place in two totally different countries. But, if we combine them together, fo as to behold at one glance their fingular mutual refemblance, and then compare the whole with the records contained in the Pentateuch, this momentary illufion will speedily vanish; and we shall be convinced, that, however each nation may have appropriated a circumstance to their own peculiar gods, and their own peculiar country, it is impoffible for all to concur in relating the fame facts, unless thofe facts had really happened in fome remote period, when all mankind formed, as it were, but one great family. Had a fingle people only given an account of the creation fomewhat refembling that of Mofes, or preferved a tradition, that one of their ancient kings escaped from the waters of a deluge; we might then with juftice conclude, that the former of these coincidences was merely accidental, and that the latter related entirely to a partial inun

dation.

1.

SECT. dation. But when we find, that nearly all the Pagan cofmogonies bear a strong likenefs to each other, though different deities may be represented by different nations as completing the work; and, when we meet with fome tradition of a deluge in every country, though the perfon faved from it is faid, in those various accounts, to have reigned in various districts widely feparated from each other; we are constrained to allow, that this general concurrence of belief could never have originated from mere accident. While the mind is in this fituation, Scripture comes forward, and offers to it a narrative more fimple, better connected, and bearing a greater resemblance to authentic history, than any of thofe mythological accounts, which occur in the traditions of Paganifm. A conviction immediately flashes upon the understanding, that this must be the true hiftory of those remarkable facts, which other nations have handed down to us, only through the medium of fable and allegory. The univerfality of fimilitude between Heathen and Mofaical antiquities bears down every objection, and the authenticity of the Pentateuch is placed upon the fure bafis of undefigned coincidence.

The

II.

The history of the Jewish Legislator CHAP. commences with an account of the creation of the world. This is a fubject, that has perpetually engaged the attention of the more inquifitive part of mankind in all countries; but in the eaft, the cradle of the human race, we find those accounts of it, which accord most accurately with the page of Scripture.

I.

Chaldee ac

creation.

I. The inhabitants of Chaldea, long celebrated for their aftronomical obfervations, count of the and deducing their origin from the most remote antiquity, are now utterly extinct as a separate people, and their learning has in a great measure perifhed with them. Some remains however of their fentiments refpecting the creation of the world are preferved in the page of Syncellus from Alexander Polyhistor. Whatever knowledge they had of this event, they afcribe to the teaching of an amphibious monster, denominated Oannes. Like the emblematical deity fo common throughout Afia, his form confifted of the body of a man, terminating in the tail of a fifh. By day he afcended from the waters of the Red Sea, and conveyed his inftructions in a human voice to the affembled multitudes :

but

SECT. but at night he retired from the land, and concealed himself within the receffes of the

1.

ocean.

Oannes taught his auditors, that there was a time, when all things were darkness and water, in the midft of which various monfters of horrible forms received life and light. Over this chaotic mass prefided the demon Omoroca, a mythological personification of the ocean. At length arrived the destined hour of creation. The monster Omoroca fell fubdued beneath the victorious arm of Belus; the animals which composed her empire were annihilated; and the world was formed out of her fubftance. Oannes however taught, that this physiological defcription was to be taken merely in an allegorical sense, and that the whole fable alluded to the aqueous origin of the universe. Matter having been thus created, Belus divided the darkness from the light, feparated the earth from the heavens, difpofed the world in order, and called the starry host into existence. As for the human species, it was formed, by other inferior deities, out of the duft of the earth, and the water of the ocean personified under the mythological character of Omo

roca.

roca. Hence man was endowed with in- CHAP. tellect, and became a partaker of the divine reafona.

Such are the principal outlines of the fyftem of the ancient Chaldeans; but fome degree of obfcurity is thrown over it by the affertion of Syncellus, that Omoroca fignifies also the moon- Ομόρωκα ειναι δε τουτο Χαλδαίςι μεν θαλατθ, Ελληνιςί δε μεθερ μηνεύεται θαλασσα, κατα δε ισοψηφον σεληνη. This difficulty however will vanish upon a more attentive inquiry into the mythological opinions of the ancients; and the fuppofed connexion between that planet and the watery element will tend to prove, that, amidst all the darkness of allegory, the aqueous origin of the universe is alone to be understood. In the language of aboriginal Greèce, Maia, according to Euftathius, is equivalent to Mother; and the deep gloom of night is ftyled by Proclus, the fupreme parent (Masa) of the Gods. If from Greece we extend our researches into Affyria and Egypt, we shall find, that the former of thefe nations defignates the

* Γενεσθαι φησι χρονον, εν ᾧ το παν σκόλος και ύδωρ είναι καλο SYNCELLI Chronog. p. 29.

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