* months, the Assyrian for days; and then the account will not seem so formidable. Again, for the calculation of eclipses, as it may be made for many thousand years to come, and be exactly true, and yet the World may end to-morrow; because the calculation must be made with this tacit condition, if the bodies of the earth, and sun, and moon, do continue in their substance and constant motion so long so may it also be made for many millions of years past, and all be true, if the World have been so old; which the calculating doth not prove, but suppose. He then who should in the Egyptian temples see the description of so many eclipses of the sun and moon, could not be assured that they were all taken from real observation, when they might be as well described out of proleptical supposition. Besides, the motions of the sun, which they mention together and with authority equal to that of their other observations, are so incredible and palpably fabulous, that they take off all credit and esteem from the rest of their narrations. For with this wild account of years, and seemingly accurate observations of the heavens, they left it written to posterity, that the whole course of the celestial motions were four times changed: so that † the sun hath twice risen in the east and set in the west, as it now does; and, on the contrary, twice risen in the west and set in the east. And thus these prodigious antiquaries confute themselves.‡ Εἰ δὲ καὶ ὅ φησιν Εὔδοξος ἀληθὲς, ὅτι Αἰγύπτιοι τὸν μῆνα ἐνιαυτὸν ἐκάλουν, οὐκ ἂν ἡ τῶν πολλῶν τούτων ἐνιαυτῶν ἀπαρίθμησις ἔχοι τι θαυμαστόν. Proclus in Timæum, l. i. p. 31. 50. ‘Nam quod aiunt quadringenta et septuaginta millia annorum in periclitandis experiundisque pueris, quicunque nati essent, Babylonios posuisse, fallunt: si enim esset factum, non † Εν τοίνυν τούτῳ τῷ χρόνῳ τετράκις esset desitum. Neminem autem haἔλεγον ἐξ ἠθέων τὸν ἥλιον ἀνατεῖλαι bemus auctorem qui aut feri dicat, ἔνθα τε νῦν καταδύεται, ἐνθεῦτεν δὶς aut factum sciat. Cicero, l. ii. de Diἐπανατεῖλαι· καὶ ἔνθεν νῦν ἀνατέλλει, ἐν-vinat. c. 97. And if the last be false, Davra diç karadõvai. Herod. Euterp. we have no reason to believe the first c. 142. Mandatumque literis servant, is true; but rather to deny their astrodum Ægyptii sunt, quater cursus suos vertisse sidera, ac Solem bis jam occidisse ubi nunc oritur.' Pompon. Mela, 1. i. c. 10. Whereas Aristotle more soberly: 'Εν ἅπαντι γὰρ παρεληλυθότι χρόνῳ κατὰ τὴν παραδεδομένην ἀλλήλοις μνήμην οὐδὲν φαίνεται μεταβεβληκός, οὔτε καθ ̓ ὅλον τὸν ἔσχατον οὐρανὸν, οὔτε κατὰ μόριον αὐτοῦ τῶν οἰκείων οὐδέν. De Coelo, 1. i. c. 3. t. 22. Vide Simplic. ad loc. t As the Chaldees did affirm that they had taken observations of the celestial motions for four bundred and seventy thousand years; and withal they also affirmed, that for the same space of time they had calculated the nativity of all the children who were born. Which last is certainly false. nomical observations by their vain ambition in astrological predictions. And indeed those observations of the Chaldees being curiously searched into by Callisthenes, appointed by Aristotle for that purpose, were found really to go no further than one thou sand nine hundred and three years before Alexander, as Porphyrius hath declared, who was no friend to the account of Moses. Διὰ τὸ μήπω τὰς ὑπὸ Καλλισθένους ἐκ Βαβυλῶνος πεμφθείσας παρατηρήσεις ἀφικέσθαι εἰς τὴν ̔Ελλάδα τοῦ ̓Αριστοτέλους τοῦτο ἐπισκή ψαντος αὐτῷ· ἅς τινας διηγεῖται ὁ Πορ φύριος χιλίων ἐτῶν εἶναι καὶ ἐννεακοσίων τριῶν μέχρι τῶν χρόνων Αλεξάνδρου τοῦ Makedóvos owloμέvas. Simplic. ad 2. Aristot. de Cœlo, p. 123. What then are these feigned observations and fabulous descriptions for the World's antiquity, in respect not only of the infallible annals of the Spirit of God, but even of the constant testimonies of more sober men, and the real appearances and face of things, which speak them of a far shorter date? If we look into the historians which give account of ancient times, nay, if we peruse the fictions of the poets, we shall find the first to have no footsteps, the last to feign no actions of so great antiquity. *If the race of men had been eternal, or as old as the Egyptians and the Chaldees fancy it, how should it come to pass that the poetical inventions should find no actions worthy their heroic verse before the Trojan or the Theban war, or that great adventure of the Argonauts ? For whatsoever all the Muses, the daughters of Memory, could rehearse before those times, is nothing but the creation of the World, and the nativity of their gods. If we consider the necessaries of life,† the ways of freedom and commerce amongst men, and the inventions of all arts and sciences, the letters which we use, and languages which we speak, they have all known originals, and may be traced to their first authors. The first beginnings were then so known and acknowledged by all, that the inventors and authors of them were reckoned amongst their gods, and worshipped by those to whom they had been so highly beneficial: which honour and adoration they could not have obtained, but from such as were really sensible of their former want, and had experience of a present advantage by their means. If we search into the nations themselves, we shall see none without some original: and were those authors extant who * This argument is therefore to me the stronger, because made by him who cannot be thought a favourer of our religion, because he was a counte- 'Præterea, si nulla fuit genitalis origo Quo tot facta virum toties cecidere? neque usquam + Pliny gives a large account of makes use of this argument, 1. v. these, 1. vii. c. 56. and Lucretius 333. 'Quare etiam quædam nunc artes expoliuntur, Polemo Krious Tóλɛwv iv pwridi, Cha- have written of the first plantations and migrations of people, the foundations and inhabiting of cities and countries, the first rudiments would appear as evident as their later growth and present condition. We know what ways within two thousand years people have made through vast and thick woods for their habitations, now as fertile, as populous, as any. The Hercynian trees, in the time of the Cæsars, occupying so great a space as to take up a journey of sixty days,* were thought even then coeval with the World. We read without any show of contradiction, how this western part of the World hath been peopled from the east: and all the pretence of the Babylonian antiquity is nothing else, but that we all came from thence. Those eight persons saved in the Ark, descending from the Gordiæan mountains and multiplying to a large collection in the plain of Sinaar, made their first division at that place; and that dispersion, or rather dissemination, hath peopled all other parts of the World, either never before inhabited, or dispeopled by the flood. These arguments have always seemed so clear and undeniable, that they have put not only those who make the World eternal, but those also who confess it made (but far more ancient than we believe it), to a strange answer, to themselves uncertain, to us irrational. For to this they replied, that this World‡ hath suffered many *'Silvarum, Hercynia, dierum sexaginta iter occupans, ut major aliis, ita et notior.' Pompon. Mela, 1. iii. c. 3. + 'Hercyniæ silvæ roborum vastitas intacta ævis et congenita mundo, prope immortali sorte miracula excedit.' Plin. l. xvi. c. 2. †Thus Ocellus, who maintained the World was never made, answers the argument brought from the Greek histories which began with Inachus, as the first subject, not author of history, (as Negarola in his Annotations mistakes Ocellus): Aiò kai rois λéyovo τὴν Ἑλληνικῆς ἱστορίας ἀρχὴν ἀπὸ Ινάχου εἶναι τοῦ Αργείου, προσεκτέον οὕτως, οὐχ ὡς ἀπό τινος ἀρχῆς πρώτης, ἀλλὰ τῆς γενομένης μεταβολῆς κατ ̓ αὐτήν. c. iii. §. 5. So that he will have Inachus to be the first not absolutely, but since the last great alteration made in Greece; and then he concludes that Greece hath often been, and will often be, barbarous, and lose the memory of all their actions: Πολλάκις γὰρ καὶ γέγονε καὶ ἔσται βάρβαρος ή Ἑλλὰς, οὐχ ὑπ' ἀνθρώπων μόνον γινομένη μετάστατος, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑπ' αὐτῆς τῆς φύσεως οὐ μείζονος οὐδὲ μείονος αὐτῆς γινομένης, ἀλλὰ γὰρ νεωτέρας ἀεὶ καὶ πρὸς ἡμᾶς ἀρχὴν λαμβανούσης. Ocellus de Universo, ibid. Thus Plato, who asserted the creation of the World, but either from eternity, or such antiquity as does not much differ from it, brings in Solon inquiring the age of the Greek histories, as of Phoroneus, and Niobe, Deucalion and Pyrrha; and an Egyptian priest answering, that all the Greeks were boys, and not an old man amongst them, that is, they had no ancient monuments, or history of any antiquity, but rested contented with the knowledge of the time, since the last great mutation of their own country: Πολλαὶ γὰρ κατὰ πολλὰ φθοραὶ γεγόνασιν ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἔσονται, πυρὶ μὲν καὶ ὕδατι μέγισται, μυρίοις δὲ ἄλλοις ἕτεραι βραχύτεραι. In Timæo, p. 291. Origen of Celsus: Tò Toas ἐκ παντὸς αἰῶνος πυρώσεις γεγονέναι, πολλὰς δ' ἐπικλύσεις, καὶ νεώτερον εἶναι τὸν ἐπὶ Δευκαλίωνος κατακλυσμὸν ἔναγχος γεγενημένον, σαφῶς τοῖς ἀκούειν αὐτ τοῦ δυναμένοις παρίστησι τὸ κατ' αὐτὸν τοῦ κόσμου ἀγέννητον. 1. 1. §. 19. And Lucretius the Epicurean, who thought the World but few thousand years old, as we believe, and that it should at last be consumed, as we also are persuaded, thinks this answer of theirs so far from being a refutation of the alterations, by the utter destructions of nations and depopulations of countries, by which all monuments of antiquity were defaced, all arts and sciences utterly lost, all fair and stately fabrics ruined, and so mankind reduced to paucity, and the World often again returned into its infancy. This they conceived to have been done oftentimes in several ages, sometimes by a deluge of water, sometimes by a torrent of fire; and, lest any of the elements might be thought not to conspire to the destruction of mankind, the air must sweep away whole empires at once with infectious plagues, and earthquakes swallow up all ancient cities, and bury even the very ruins of them. By which answer of theirs they plainly afford two great advantages to the Christian faith. First, Because they manifestly shew that they had a universal tradition of Noah's flood, and the overthrow of the old World: Secondly, Because it was evident to them, that there was no way to salve the eternity or antiquity of the World, or to answer this argument drawn from history and the appearances of things themselves, but by supposing innumerable deluges and deflagrations. Which being merely feigned in themselves, not proved (and that first* by them who, say they, are not subject themselves unto them, as the Egyptians did, who by the advantage of their peculiar situation feared neither perishing by fire nor water), serve only for a confirmation of Noah's flood so many ages past, and the surer expectation of St. Peter's fire, we know not how soon to come. former, that he admits it as a confir- nion. De Rerum Natura, l. v. 339. mation of the latter part of his opi 6 Quod si forte fuisse antehac eadem omnia credis, Sed periisse hominum torrenti sæcla vapore, * Ἔστωσαν δὲ τῷ Κέλσῳ τοῦ περὶ τῶν ἐκπυρώσεων καὶ ἐξυδατώσεων μύθου διδάσκαλοι οἱ κατ' αὐτὸν σοφώτατοι ΑιγύTTIOL. Orig. adv. Celsum, 1. i. §. 20. + So that Egyptian priest in Plato's Timæus tells Solon that the fable of Phaethon did signify a real conflagration of the World; but so as all they which lived in mountains or dry parts of the earth were scorched and consumed, but of those who lived near the seas or rivers in the valleys, some were preserved: ui dè, saith he, & Νεῖλος εἴς τε τἄλλα σωτὴρ, καὶ τότε ἐκ ταύτης τῆς ἀπορίας σώζει λυόμενος. p. 291. Thus the Egyptians pretend Nilus saved them from the flames of Phaethon. Nor were they only safe from conflagrations, but from inundations also. For when in Greece or H other parts a deluge happened, then all their cities were swept away into the sea: Κατὰ δὲ τήνδε τὴν χώραν, says the priest, οὔτε τότε, οὔτε ἄλλοτε ἄνωθεν ἐπὶ τὰς ἀρούρας ὕδωρ ἐπιῤῥεῖ· τὸ δ' ἐναντίον, κάτωθεν ἐπανιέναι πέφυκεν. ὅθεν καὶ δι ̓ ἃς αἰτίας τἀνθάδε σωζόμενα λéyeraι πaλaιóτATA. p. 292. So Egypt receiving not their waters from above by clouds, but from below by springs filling the river Nile, was out of danger in a deluge, and thereby preserved the most ancient monuments and records. But, alas! this is a poor shift to them who believe that in the great and universal flood, "all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." Gen. vii. 11. It remaineth then that we steadfastly believe, not only that the "heavens and earth, and all the host of them” (Gen. ii. 1.) were made, and so acknowledge a creation, or an actual and immediate dependence of all things on God; but also that all things were created by the hand of God, in the same manner, and at the same time, which are delivered unto us in the books of Moses by the Spirit of God, and so acknowledge a novity, or no long existence of the creature. Neither will the novity of the World appear more plainly unto our conceptions, than if we look upon our own successions. The vulgar accounts, which exhibit about five thousand six hundred years, though sufficiently refuting an eternity, and allaying all conceits of any great antiquity, are not yet so properly and nearly operative on the thoughts of men, as a reflection upon our own generations. The first of men was but six days younger than the being, not so many than the appearance, of the earth: and if any particular person would consider how many degrees in a direct line he probably is removed from that single person Adam, who bare together the name of man and of the earth from whence he came, he could not choose but think himself so near the original fountain of mankind, as not to conceive any great antiquity of the World. For though the ancient heathens did imagine innumerable* ages and generations of men past, though Origent did fondly seem to collect so much by some misinterpretations of the Scriptures; yet if we take a sober view, and make but rational collections from the chronology of the Sacred Writ, we shall find no man's pedigree very exorbitant, or in his line of generation descent of many score. When the age of man was long, in the infancy of the World, we find ten generations extend to one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years, according to the shortest, which is thought, because the Hebrew, therefore the best account; according to the longest, which, because the Septuagint's, is not to be * So Cicero indeed speaks, innumerabilia sæcula, in his book of Divination: and Socrates in Plato's Theætetus brings this argument against the pride of great and noble families, that they who mention a succession of their ancestors who have been rich and powerful, do it merely: ' àraidevσίας, οὐ δυναμένων εἰς τὸ πᾶν ἀεὶ βλέπειν, οὐδὲ λογίζεσθαι, ὅτι πάππων καὶ προγόνων μυριάδες ἑκάστῳ γεγόνασιν ἀναρίθμητοι, ἐν αἷς πλούσιοι καὶ πτωχοί, καὶ βασιλεῖς καὶ δοῦλοι, βάρβαροί τε καὶ Ελληνες πολλάκις μυρίοι γεγόνασιν ὁτῳouv p. 118. as if every person were equally honourable, having innumerable ancestors, rich and poor, servants and kings, learned and barba rous. + Origen did not only collect the eternity of the World from the coexistence of all God's attributes, as because heis παντοκράτωρ and δημιουργός,therefore he was always so, for how could he be δημιουργὸς ἄνευ δημιουργημάτων, or παντοκράτωρ ἄνευ τῶν κρατουμένων ; but also from the ninetieth psalm, “ From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday;" and that at the beginning of Ecclesiasticus, “ Who can number the sand of the sea, and the drops of the rain, and the days of eternity?" But Methodius, bishop and martyr, hath well concluded that disputation: Tavrá pησιν ὁ Ωριγένης σπουδάζων, καὶ ὅρα οἷα Taile. [Vid. p. 102.] |