Alexander Polyhiftor's teftimony agrees with that of Abydenus, as it is preferved

by Cyril. That in the times of this Xisuthrus, there happened a great delugeThat he himself was faved, having been forewarned of it by Saturn, and admonished by him to build a veffel for the purpose, which he betook himself into, taking with him birds, reptiles, and cattle; and rode upon the waters in itt.

Plutarch, likewife, in his treatife concerning the fagacity of animals, mentions Deucalion's ark, who is often by heathen writers confounded with Noab; together with the fending out of the dove; which, by her return, indicated the continuance of the flood; and at laft, by not returning, fignified the abatement of it.

Melo,

et Eufeb. Chron. Hieronymi opera de locis Hebraicis init. tom. i. p. 412. Arcis et diluvii omnes qui barbaras fcripfère hiftorias recordantur.

+ Cyril. ib.

Plutarch. de Solert. Animalium. Plutarch elfewhere tells us, that Orafis went into the ark, on the

Melo, who wrote a book against the Jews, makes mention of a man, who, at the time of the deluge, had escaped it with his children, and had been deprived of his fubftance, and driven out of Armenia by the inhabitants; and that, after traverfing the interjacent parts, he came into the hill-country of Syria, which he found unoccupied. Here is the teftimony of an adversary, to the truth of the Mofaic history of the deluge.

But the most remarkable, as well as the fulleft; the most exact and circumftantial of is that of Lucian; a bitter enemy any,

17th of Athyr, which month is the fecond after the autumnal equinox, the fun then paffing through Scorpius; which agrees exactly with the day affigned by Mofes for the beginning of the deluge. This is a very remarkable atteftation to the truth and precifion of the Mofaic account of it. Plut. de Ifide et Ofirid. P. 356. Univ. Hift. vol. i. p. 226.

Eufeb. Præp. Evang. lib. ix. cap. 19. This is justly reckoned a jumbled account, in which Noah's prefervation from the deluge is confounded with Terah's migration from Chaldea to Haran, and Abraham's fettlement in Canaan.

to

to christianity; and therefore no friend to Mofes, or his writings, had he been aware that he was bearing witness to them. He profeffes he had his information in Greece, and from the Greeks, concerning that Deucalion, in whofe time a great inundation happened. The paffage is long; but it well deferves a place here, for the fake of the English reader; as it exhibits an inftance of the leaft corrupted tradition, and the most agreeable to the Mofaical writings, of any that I remember to have met with: And it contains a curious account, not only of the flood, but likewise of the character of the antediluvians, beyond what I think is any where elfe to be found. The paffage is as follows-" The prefent race of men, fays he, are not descended from those that originally existed: For that generation all perished.

These are of a fecond original, who fprang from Deucalion, and in procefs of time increased to a great multitude. The former race of men are thus reported of:

Being very injurious, they perpetrated unlawful practices; for they neither observed their oaths, nor were hofpitable to ftrangers; nor had any pity upon fupplicants: For which offences they were overtaken with a dreadful calamity. For the earth unexpectedly discharged a vast quantity of water; and great rains falling at the fame time, the rivers overflowed, and the fea itself overfpread the earth; infomuch that all things became water; and all mankind perifhed: Deucalion alone was left to be the father of another race of men, on the merit of his prudence and piety. He was preferved in this manner. He took his fons, and the women of his family, into a large ark which he had provided: And as he entered it, hogs, and horfes, lions, ferpents, and other terrestrial animals, flocked to him, all in pairs; and he received them all: Nor did they offer to hurt him; great friendship, from the influence of the Deity, having arofe between them; And thus they all failed together

gether in the fame veffel, as long as the waters prevailed. These are the reports of the Greeks, fays he, concerning Deucaleon *."

All this is fo agreeable to the Mofaic account, and favours fo little of the muddy channel of tradition, that it seems to have been drawn from the fountain-head. Our author fays he had it from the Greeks: But, if the truth were known, I am apt to think they were Greek chriftians; who were of course converfant with the writings of Mofes; but to whom, as fuch, he did not care to own his obligations, for this piece of history: We are however obliged to him, for adopting it,

* Lucian. de Deâ Syriâ. Vide etiam Timon Luciani. Plato alludes to the deluge in his Timeus: And Ovid is well known to give a very full and circumftantial defcription of it in his Metam. lib. i. which he, as well as others, confounds with that of Deucalion.

Τεΐον Έλληνες μεν Δευκαλίωνα, Χαλδαίοι δε Νωε επο νομαζεσιν, ἐφ' ου τον μεζαν κατακλυσμον συνέβη γενέσθαι fays Philo, de præmiis et pœnis, p. 913.

and