OR, THE HISTORY OF THE LIVES, ACTS, DEATH, AND MARTYRDOMS OF THOSE WHO WERE CONTEMPORARY WITH, OR IMMEDIATELY AS ALSO THE MOST EMINENT OF THE PRIMITIVE FATHERS, FOR THE FIRST THREE HUNDRED YEARS. TO WHICH IS ADDED, A CHRONOLOGY OF THE THREE FIRST AGES OF THE CHURCH. BY WILLIAM CAVE, D. D. XV PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY SOLOMON WIATT, NO. 104, NORTH SECOND-STREET. Sweeny & M'Kenzie, Printers. TO THE READER. IT is not the least argument for the spiritual and incorporeal nature of human souls, and that they are acted by a higher principle than meer matter and motion, their boundless and inquisitive researches after knowledge. Our minds naturally grasp at a kind of omnisciency, and not content with the speculations of this or that particular science, hunt over the whole course of nature; nor are they satisfied with the present state of things, but pursue the notices of former ages and are desirous to comprehend whatever transactions have been since time itself had a being. We endeavour to make up the shortness of our lives by the extent of our knowledge; and because we cannot see forwards and spy what lies concealed in the womb of futurity, we look back, and eagerly trace the footsteps of those times that went before us. Indeed to be ignorant of what happened before we ourselves came into the world is, (as Cicero truly observes) to be always children, and to deprive ourselves of what would at once entertain our minds with the highest pleasure, and add the greatest authority and advantage to us. The knowledge of antiquity, besides that it gratifies one of our noblest curiosities, improves our minds by the wisdom of preceding ages, acquaints us with the most remarkable occurrences of the Divine Providence, and presents us with the most apt and proper rules and instances that may form us to a life of true philosophy and virtue; History (says Thucydides) being nothing else but Φιλοσοφία ἐκ παραδόγμα , philosophy drawn from examples; the one is a more gross and popular philosophy the other a more subtle and refined history These considerations, together with a desire to perpetuate the memory of brave and great actions, gave birth to history, and obliged mankind to transmit the more observable passages both of their own and foregoing times to the notice of posterity. The first in this kind was Moses, the great prince and legislator of the Jewish nation, who from the creation of the world conveyed down the records of above 2550 years; the same course being more or less continued through all the periods of the Jewish state. Among the Babylonians they had their public archives, which were transcribed by Berosus the priest of Belus, who composed the Chaldean history. The Egyptians were wont to record their memorable acts upon pillars in hieroglyphic notes and sacred characters, first begun as they pretend,) by Thouth, or the first of their Mercuries; out of which Manethos, their chief priest, collected his three books of Egyptian dynasties, which he dedicated to Ptolomy Philadelphus, second of that line. The Phoenician history was first attempted by Sanchoniathon, digested partly out of the annals of cities, partly out of the books kept in the temple, and communicated to him by Jerombaal, priest of the god Jao: this he dedicated to Abibalus king of Berytus, which Philo Byblius, about the time of the emperor Adrian, translated into Greek. The Gr.eks boast of the antiquity of Cadmus, Archilochus, and many others, though the most ancient of their his to ians now extant are Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. Among the Romans the foundations of history were laid in annals, the public acts of every year being made up by the Pontifex Maximus, who kept them at his own house, that the people upon any emergency might resort to them for satisfaction. These were the annales maximi and afforded excellent materials to those who afterwards wrote the history of that great and powerful commonwealth. But that which of all others challenges the greatest re. gard both as it more immediately concerns the present |