spake a parable upon every sort of tree, from the hyssop to the cedar; and in like manner also about beasts, about all sorts of living creatures, whether upon the earth, or in the seas, or in the air; for he was not unacquainted with any of their natures, nor omitted inquiries about them, but described them all like a philosopher, and demonstrated his exquisite knowledge of their several properties. God also enabled him to learn that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons, so that they never return; and this method of cure is of great force unto this day for I have seen a certain man of my own. country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal, in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and

the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this: he put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils: and when the man fell down immediately, he adjured him to return into him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed. And when Eleazar would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he set a little way off a cup or bason full of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man: and when this was done, the skill and wisdom of Solomon was showed very manifestly; for which reason it is that all men may know the vastness of Solomon's abilities, and how he was beloved of God, and that the extraordinary virtues of every kind with which this king was endowed, may not be unknown to any people under the sun; for this reason, I say, it is that we have proceeded to speak so largely of these matters.

lomon sent him an epistle, the contents of which here follow:

SOLOMON TO KING HIRAM.

"Know thou that my father would have built a temple to God, but was hindered by wars off to overthrow his enemies till he made them and continual expeditions; for he did not leave all subject to tribute: but I give thanks to God count I am at leisure, and design to build a house for the peace I at present enjoy, and on that acto God, for God foretold to my father that such a house should be built by me; wherefore I desire thee to send some of thy subjects with mine Sidonians are more skilful than our people in to mount Lebanon to cut down timber, for the cutting of wood. As for wages to the hewers of wood, I will pay whatsoever price thou shalt determine."

pleased with it, and wrote back this answer to 7. When Hiram had read this epistle, he was

Solomon.

HIRAM TO KING SOLOMON.

"It is fit to bless God that he hath committed thy father's government to thee, who art a wise man, and endowed with all virtues. As for myself, I rejoice at the condition thou art in, and will be subservient to thee in all that thou send est to me about; for when by my subjects I have cut down many and large trees of cedar, and cypress wood, I will send them to sea, and will order my subjects to make floats of them, and to sail to what place soever of thy country thou shalt desire, and leave them there, after which thy subjects may carry them to Jerusalem: but do thou take care to procure us corn for this timber, which we stand in need of, because we inhabit in an island."t

8. The copies of these epistles remain at this day, and are preserved not only in our books, but among the Tyrians also, insomuch that if any one would know the certainty about them, he may desire of the keepers of the public records of Tyre to show him them; and he will find what is there set down to agree with what we have said. I have said so much out of a desire that my readers may know that we speak nothing but the truth, and do not compose a history out of some plausible relations which de

6. Moreover, Hiram king of Tyre, when he had heard that Solomon succeeded to his father's kingdom, was very glad of it, for he was a friend of David. So he sent ambassadors to him, and saluted him, and congratulated him on the present happy state of his affairs. Upon which So-ceive men and please them at the same time,

⚫ Some pretended fragments of these books of conjuration of Solomon are still extant in Fabricius's Cod. Pseudepigr. Vet. Test. p. 1054, though I entirely differ from Josephus in this his supposal, that such books and arts of Solomon were parts of that wisdom which was imparted to him by God in his younger days; they must rather have belonged to such profane but curious arts as we find mentioned, Acts xix. 13-20, and had been derived from the idolatry and superstition of his heathen wives and concubines in his old age, when he had forsaken God, and God had forsaken him, and given him up to demoniacal delusions. Nor does Josephus's strange account of his root Baara, (Of the War, B. viii. ch. vi. sect. 3,) seem to be other than that of its magical use in such conjurations. As for the following history, it confirms what Christ says, Matt. xii. 27," If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?"

These epistles of Solomon and Hiram are those in 1 Kings v. 39; and as enlarged, in 2 Chron. ii. 3—16; but here given us by Josephus in his own words.

island was then joined to the continent at the present remains of Paletyrus by a neck of land over against Solomon's cisterns, still so called; and the city's fresh water probably was carried along in pipes by that neck of land, and that this island was therefore in strictness no other than a peninsula, having villages in its fields, Ezek. xxvi. 6, and a wall about it, Amos i. 10; and the city was not of so great reputation as Sidon for some ages; that it was attacked both by sea and land by Salmanasser, as Josephus informs us, Antiq. B. ix. chap. xiv. sect. 2; and afterward came to be the metropolis of Phoenicia, and afterward taken and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, according to the numerous scripture prophecies thereto relating, Isa. xxiii. Jer. xxv. 22; xxvii. 3; xlvii. 4; Ezek. xxvi. xxvii. xxxviii. That seventy years after that destruction by Nebuchadnezzar this city was in some measure revived and rebuilt, Isaiah xxiii. 17, 18; but that, as the prophet Ezekiel had foretold, xxvi. 3, 4, 5, 14; xxvii. 34; the sea arose higher than before, till at last it overflowed not only the neck of land, but the main island or peninsula itself, and destroyed that old and famous city for ever; that, however, there still remained an adjoining smaller island, once connected to old Tyre itself by Hiram, which was afterward inhabited; to which Alexander the Great, with incredible

What Josephus here puts into his copy of Hiram's epistle to Solomon, and repeats afterward, chap. v. sect. 3 that Tyre was now an island, is not in any of the three other copies, viz. that of the Kings, Chronicles, or Eusebius; nor is it any other, I suppose, thau his own conjec-pains, raised a new bank or causeway; and that it plainly tural paraphrase; for when I many years ago inquired into this matter, I found the state of this famous city, and of the island whereupon it stood, to have been very different at different times. The result of my inquiries in this matter, with the addition of some later improvements, stands thus. That the best testimonies hercto relating, imply that Palætvrus, or oldest Tyre, was no other than that most ancient smaller fort or city Tyre, situated on the continent, and mentioned in Josh. xix. 29, out of which the Canaanite or Phoenician inhabitants were driven into a large island that lay not far off in the sea by Joshua; that this

appears, from Maundrell, a most authentic eyewitness, that the old large and famous city, on the original large island, is now laid so generally under water, that scarce more than forty acres of it, or rather of that adjoining small island, remain at this day; so that perhaps not above a hundredth part of the first island and city is now above water. This was foretold in the same prophecies of Ezekiel; and, according to them, as Mr. Maundrell distinctly observes, these poor remains of old Tyre are now "become like the top of a rock, a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea."