Cyclops and Giants, but Thetis and Saturn, and the other gods, as the children of heaven and earth, originating from monstrous conjunctions, and carrying on unnatural strife and discord, he gives a derivation and recency to their origin, which accords well with the assigned manner of their generation and with their character, and demonstrates how little of real knowledge the Greeks possessed in the time of Hesiod. As we look back to remote times, we behold the celestial and the earthly lines blending in one horizon, and no eye can discriminate their respective boundaries.

Cudworth affirms that the generation of the gods, which Hesiod describes, is, that of the inferior gods only;, ZETE, or Jupiter, being excepted out of the number; Hesiod, as well as Homer, considering him as the father and king of gods.

"For he is the king and ruler of all the "immortal gods; the creator of men and "all things *."

The theory of heaven framed by Hesiod, and the description of the deities with which

he peopled the celestial mansions, became the popular system of superstition.

They, however, who obtained information from purer sources, were offended at fancies so preposterous and wild. In proportion as they caught a glimpse of truth, their minds rejected falsehood. Pythagoras feigned that he had seen the soul of Hesiod, in the infernal regions, bound to a brazen column, and shrieking from the pain which he endured for having fabricated calumnies against the gods*.

Hesiod, in his representation of preceding times, describes four ages, and an intermediate period, marked with their distinct emblems, and characterized by the terms of gold and silver, brazen and iron, in a manner which reminds us of the image furnished in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, which pourtrayed, under the same metallic distinction of its parts, the four great empires of the world †.

Hesiod, in his first age, represents a virtuous race of men to have existed under the dominion of Saturn, free from care, and labour, and sorrow, in heavenly abodes, en

Laert. lib. viii. § 11.

+ Dan. xi.

joying length of days, and abundance of fruits, and social pleasures devoid of all evil.

In analogy to the accounts of Scripture, Hesiod represents this period to have been succeeded by a silver age, in which the lives of men were shortened; and they became exposed to folly, injustice, and mutual injuries, manifesting a neglect of the gods.

Mr. Mitford imagines that the two first ages of Hesiod preceded the Deluge, and that the golden period referred only to the state of man in Paradise. It included however the time in which men began to mul tiply, and Hales contends therefore that the golden age exhibited an imperfect tradition of the whole period, both before, and after the Fall, comprehending the patriarchal state of our first parents, and likewise the pure line of Seth, until his descendants, "the sons of God," (so styled from their superior piety,) about the age of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, began to be corrupted by

66

'Apoi μs, literally, "rich in apples;" some read, "rich in flocks," alluding to the pastoral character of the age. "Epya xas Huspa, lib. 116. Gen. iv. 2. Plato, Evμos. lib. v. c. 10. Edit. Stephan. 1578. Lucret. lib. v.

their promiscuous intermarriages with "the daughters of men," of the apostate Cainite race *.

66

The diminution of the standard of human life in the silver age, applies to the period after the Flood; and this age, therefore, probably, succeeded the Deluge, and extended to the colonization of the earth in the days of Peleg.

Mitford and Hales agree in considering the three succeeding ages of Hesiod as referring to Grecce only.

The brazen age related to the early state of turbulence and insecurity, when the first colonies from Asia, Phoenicia, and Egypt, settled in Greece, and when as Hesiod describes, men were fierce, strong, and addicted to arms. It was then that the rape of lo, and that of Europa took place, and men perished without renown, having no sacred poet to celebrate their famet. This age terminated, as these writers suppose, with a second flood, which was merely local, and happened at a later period than is as

Gen. vi. 1, 2. Jud. iv. Hales's New Analysis of Chronology, vol. i. p. 40.

+ Horat. lib. iv, ode 9. 1. 25 – 9.

signed to the deluge; for Apollodorus and Proclus state, that Jove sent a flood to destroy the men of the brazen

age

*

After this, Hesiod speaks of an intermediate age of heroes or demigods, who carried on war at Thebes and Troy, and after death were conveyed to the isles of the blessed.

This age was a glorious period described by poets and historians, and commencea, according to Hales, with Deucalion's Flood, B. C. 1548, and it ended before Christ 1183.

The iron age, in which Hesiod laments that he was born, is described by him to have next succeeded; in which incessant labour And misery were sustained with heavy cares; in which discord between parents and children, violence, plunder, and disregard of the gods, envy and calumny prevailed; and in which premature age, and accelerated death took place, and modesty and justice forsook the earth.

Hesiod intimates his expectation of a sixth race at a period in which it might be desirable to live.

Josephus cites Hesiod among authors who

VOL. II.

Scholia, in Hom. Iliad, 1. i. b. 10.

C