tured upon the sea, which had never been previously crossed; and that it was placed in the sphere as a commemorative token to posterity."

Here we are unequivocally told, that the Argo was the first ship: a point, which at once proves it to be the Ark, and disproves it to be the Thessalian ship of the fabulous hero Jason; for the Ark was certainly the first ship at least of the present world, but the romance of the Argonautic expedition describes the king of Colchis as already possessing a fleet when Jason arrived upon his shores. This particular also serves to identify it with the ship of the Cabiri; who, as we have already seen, are the same as the Noëtic family and as the eight great navicular gods of Egypt. The Cabiri are said to have been the architects of the first ship but the Argo is likewise declared to have been the first ship: therefore the ship of the Cabiri and the ship Argo are one and the same vessel.2

6. I need scarcely point out, how minutely the whole catasterism of the Argo and the minor dependent catasterisms agree with the scriptural history of the Ark.

In each appear the dove and the raven: and, in the person of the sacrificing Centaur, we obviously recognize the sacrificing Noah. Agreeably to this conclusion, Lycophron describes the primeval Cen

Eratos. Catast. xxxv.

2 For a more particular account of these remarkable deities, see my Dissert. on the Myster. of the Cabiri.

taur as being no other than Saturn.' But every particular in the history of Saturn proves him to be the Noah of Holy Writ. The Centaur of the Sphere is also palpably the second man-bull of the Zend-Avesta; who is said to have been compounded of a man and a bull and a horse, and who with three inferior associates is represented as the agent employed to bring on the waters of the deluge. With him, as we have already seen, is closely connected the Arg of the Magus; which is described as resting on the summit of mount Albordi, when the streams of the flood rolled away from its emerging sides. The Arg therefore of the Persian Centaur is evidently the same as the Argo of the sphere, from which the Centaur of classical fiction appears to be issuing.

7. Now, since we find the ship Argo thus well known in the southern regions of Asia and Egypt, as well as in the more northern regions of Greece; and since we have been obliged to conclude, that it was placed in the sphere by some ancient nation, which dwelt far nearer to the equator than the Thessalians did: we may rest assured, that it can only have been a ship in the fortunes of which all mankind were equally interested; and we may conjecture with much apparent probability, that the various catasterisms, which jointly depict its eventful history, were first arranged by the astronomers of Babel, and that the sphere on which they were

I

Lycoph. Cassand. ver. 1203. Tzetz. in loc.

depicted was carried away to many different parts of the world by them of the dispersion.'

XV. From the evidences, which have now been adduced, it is abundantly clear, that the heathens were well acquainted with all the leading circumstances of the deluge; and that their traditions, notwithstanding the fabulizing humour in which they so largely indulged, bear a striking resemblance to the narrative of Moses.

I have only to add, that the design of the present disquisition has been to compress into small compass, and to bring together into one point of view, those various traditions, which are the most consonant with the page of Scripture. By the whole thus combined, the moral certainty of the Mosaical history of the flood appears to be established on a basis sufficiently firm to bid defiance to the cavils of scepticism. Let the ingenuity of unbelief first account satisfactorily for this universal agreement of the pagan world; and she may then, with a greater degree of plausibility, impeach the truth of the scriptural narrative of the deluge.

The Greeks ascribe the sphere to the Centaur Chiron: but the Centaur was the same person as Noah, whom pagan tradition uniformly represents as a skilful astronomer. See my Orig. of Pagan Idol. b. iii. c. 2. § v, v1, v11. b. ii. c. 6. § VI. 6.

CHAPTER V.

PAGAN ACCOUNTS OF THE PERIOD AFTER THE DELUGE.

IN considering the events which took place posterior to the era of the deluge, a certain degree of caution is necessary to be used; in order to avoid the imputation of discovering coincidences between sacred and profane history, which never existed save in the imagination alone.

It appears highly probable, that the Gentiles might have had some knowledge of the postdiluvian events mentioned in Scripture, down to a certain period: but we have very little cause to suppose, that they were much acquainted with the internal state of the kingdom of Israel, after it was finally established in the land of Palestine. The reason. is obvious while the greatest part of the transactions, detailed in the other historical books of Scripture, concern merely the Israelites and the petty kingdoms situated immediately upon their frontiers; those, which are related in the Penta

teuch and which approach nearer to the time of the deluge, affect, more or less, the ancestors of all nations.

Such a circumstance, added to the remarkable seclusion of the chosen people of God from the rest of mankind, is sufficient to destroy all probability of certain ethnical fables being derived from similar events, which happened during the existence of Israel as a nation.' The channel, through which traditions of Noah and his more immediate descendants may have been derived to the Gentiles, is easily pointed out but it will perhaps be no easy matter to enforce a rational conviction, that the sacrifice of Iphigenia was borrowed from the history of Jephthah's daughter, or that the Scriptural Sampson was the prototype of the Grecian Hercules. The cause of truth frequently suffers no less from the ill-judged zeal of friends, than from the misrepresentations of professed enemies. To resolve every Pagan tradition into some corresponding Scriptural event, is the height of folly and credulity but, to deny all resemblance and all connection between sacred and profane antiquity, is more nearly allied to a blind and indiscriminate scepticism, than to a dispassionate search after historical veracity. The truth in this, as in most other cases, is equally removed from the two extremes and we may perhaps venture to assert in

The accurately predicted national characteristic of Israel was the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. Numb. xxiii. 9.