yet they were fuch as made for them, and not against them, as the Works of these Writers were thought to do, when the Enemies of Christianity produced them; and I dare fay, that if the Fragments of these Ancients did indeed contradict the Sacred History, instead of what they may, I think, when fairly interpreted, be proved to do, namely, to agree with it, and to be thereby an additional Argument of its uncorrup ted Truth and Antiquity, our modern Enemies of revealed Religion would think it a Partiality not to allow them as much Authority as our Bible. As the Works of Taautus and Sanchoniathon were corrupted by the Fables of Authors that wrote after them, fo probably the Chaldean Records fuffered Alterations from the Fancies of those who in After-ages copied them, and from hence the Reigns [or Lives] of Berofus's Antediluvian Kings [or rather Men] came to be extended to fo incredible a Length. The Lives of Men, in these Times, were extraordinary, as Mofes has reprefented them, but the prophane Hiftorians, fond of the Marvellous, have far exceeded the Truth in their Relations. Berofus Berofus computes their Lives by a Term of Years called Sarus; each Sarus, he says, is 603 Years, and he imagines fome of them to have lived 10, 12, 13, and 18 Sari, i. c. 6030, 7236,7839, and 1085 4 Years, but Mistakes of this fort have happened in Writers of a much later Date. Diodorus, and other Writers, represent the Armies of Semiramis, and her Buildings at Babylon, more numerous and magnificent than can be conceived by any one that confiders the Infant State Kingdoms were in when she reign'd. Abraham, with a Family of between three and four hundred Perfons, made the Figure of a mighty Prince, in thefe early Times, for the Earth was not full of People: And if we come down to the Times of the Trojan War, we do not find Reason to imagine, that the Countries which the Heathen Writers treated of, were more potent or populous than their Cotemporaries, of whom we have Accounts in the Sacred Pages; but the Heathen Hiftorians hearing that Semiramis, or other ancient Princes, did what were Wonders in their Age, took care to tell them in a Way and Manner, that should make them Won ders ders in their own. In a word, Mofes is the only Writer whose Accounts are liable to no Exception. We must make Allowances in many Particulars to all others, and very great ones in the Point before us, to reconcile them to either Truth or Probability; and I think I have met with a Saying of an Heathen Writer which feems to intimate it, for he uses Words fomething to this Purpose: Datur hæc Venia Antiquitati, ut mifcendo ficta veris Primordia fua auguftiora faciat. In my Hiftory of the Affyrian Empire after the Flood, I have followed that Account which the ancient Writers are fuppofed to have taken from Ctefias. Herodotus differs much from it; he imagines the (a) Affyrian Empire to have begun but 5 20 Years before the Medes broke off their Subjection to it, and thinks Semiramis to have been but five Generations older than (b) Nitocris, the Mother of Labynetus, called in Scripture Belshazzar, in whofe Reign Cyrus took Babylon. Five Generations, fays Sir John Marsham (c), could not make up 200 (a) Herodot. L. 1. c. 95. (b) Id. ibid. c. 184. (c) Can. Chron. p. 489. Years. Years. Herodotus has been thought to be mistaken in this Point by all Antiquity. Herennius obferves, that Babylon (a) was built by Belus, and makes it older than Semiramis by 2000 Years, imagining perhaps Semiramis to be as late as Herodotus has placed her, or taking Atoffa, the Daughter of Cyrus, to be Semiramis, as Photius (b) fuggefts Conon to have done. Herennius was indeed much mistaken in the Antiquity of Babylon; but whoever confiders his Opinion will find no Reafon to quote him, as Sir John Marsham (c) does in favour of Herodotus. Porphyry is (d) faid to place Semiramis about the Time of the Trojan War, but as he acknowledges in the fame Place, that he might be older, his Opinion is no Confirmation of Herodotus's Account. From Mofes's Nimrod to Nabonaffar appears evidently from Scripture to be about 1500 Years, for fo many Years there are between the Time that Nimrod began to be a mighty One (e), and the Reign of Abaz King of Judah, who was Cotemporary with Nabonaffar; and (a) Apud Steph. in Voce Bab. Narrat.9 (c) In loc. fupr. cit. (e) Gen. x. 8. 2 Kings xvi. 7. (b) Phot. Tmem. 186. (d) Euleb. Præp.1. 1. therefore therefore Herodotus, in imagining the first Affyrian Kings to be but 520 Years before Deioces of Media, falls fhort of the Truth, above 900 Years. But there ought to be no great Stress laid upon Herodotus's Account in this Matter; he seems to own himself to have taken up his Opinion from Report only, and not to have examined any Records to affure him of the Truth of it (a). Ctefias, who was Phyfician to Artaxarxes Mnemon, and lived in his Court, and near his Perfon about feventeen Years, wrote his History about an hundred Years after Herodotus. He was every way well qualified to correct the Mistakes which Herodotus had made in his Hiftory of the Affyrian and Perfian Affairs; for he did not write, as Herodotus did, from Hearfay and Report, but he search'd (b) the Royal Records of Perfia, in which all Transactions and Affairs of the Government were faithfully regiftred. That there were fuch Records was a Thing well known; and the Books of Ezra and Efther give (c) us a (α) Lib. 1. c. 95. ὡς τῶν Περσέων μετεξέτεροι λέγεσι -nava TaνTа Yoga (b) Diodorus Siculus, Lib. 2. p. 84. (c) Ezra iv. 15. Efther vi. 1. Testimony |