as do not walk in the paths of virtue into inevitable miseries. Now when Moses was desirous to teach this lesson to his countrymen, he did not begin the establishment of his laws after the same manner that other legislators did: I mean upon contracts, and other rights between one man and another; but by raising their minds upwards to regard God, and his creation of the world; and by persuading them that men are the most excellent of the creatures of God upon earth. Now when once he had brought them to submit to religion, he easily persuaded them to submit in all other things. For as to other legislators, they followed fables; and by their discourse transferred the most reproachful of human vices unto the gods, and so afforded wicked men the most plausible excuses for their crimes. But as for our legislator, when he had once demonstrated that God was possessed of perfect virtue, he supposed that men also ought to strive after the participation of it. And on those who did not so think and so believe, he inflicted the severest punishment. I therefore exhort my readers to examine the whole of this undertaking in that view; for thereby it will appear to them that there is nothing therein disagreeable either to the majesty of God, or to his love to mankind. For all things have here a reference to the nature of the universe; while our legislator speaks some things wisely, but enigmatically; and others under a decent allegory: but still explains such things as require a direct explication plainly and expressly. However, those who have a mind to know the reasons of every thing, may find here a very curious philosophical theory, which I now indeed shall wave the explication of; but if God afford me time for it, I will set about writing it after I have finished the present work. I shall now betake myself to the history before me, after I have first mentioned what Moses says of the creation of the world, which I find described in the sacred books, after the manner following:

* As to this intended work of Josephus's concerning the reasons of many of the Jewish laws, and what philosophical or allegorical sense they would bear; the loss of which work is by some of the learned not much regretted; I am inclinable, in part, to Fabricius's opinion, ap. Havercamp, page 63, 64, that “We need not doubt but, among some vain and frigid conjectures derived from Jewish imaginations, Josephus would have taught us a great number of excellent and useful things; which perhaps, nobody, neither among the Jews, nor among the Christians, cân now inform us of."

THE

ANTIQUITIES

OF

THE JEWS.

BOOK I.

Containing an interval of 3833 Years from the Creation to the Death of Isaac.

CHAP. I.

OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE WORLD and the DISPOSITION OF THE ELEMENTS.

IN the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.† But when the earth did not come into sight, but was covered with thick darkness, and a wind moved upon its surface, God commanded that there should be light, and when that was made, he considered the whole mass, and separated the light and the darkness; and the name he gave to one was night, and the other he called day; and he named the beginning of light, and the time of rest, the evening and the morning. And this was indeed the first day. But Moses said it was one day,‡ the cause of which I am able to give even now; but because I have promised to give reasons for all things in a treatise by itself, I shall put off its exposition till that time. After this, on the second day, he placed the heaven over the whole world, and

Note, that this and the other titles of chapters are wanting in the best MSS. + See Gen. i. 1. et sequel.

One is put for the first, not only here in the Hebrew and Numb. xxix. 1. Dan. ix. 1. but elsewhere in Josephus, VIII. 5. XVIII. 4. and in the Greek, Matt. xxviii. 1, John xx. 19. 1. 1 Cor. xvi. 2. as Ainsworth observes on this text. It is also in Philo, and among the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and even in Diodorus Siculus.

separated it from the other parts: and he determined it should stand by itself. He also placed a chrystaline firmanent round it; and put it together in a manner agreeable to the earth: and fitted it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording the advantage of dews. On the third day be appointed the dry land to appear, with the sea round about it; and on the same day he made the plants and the seeds to spring out of the earth. On the fourth day he adorned the heaven with the sun, the moon, and the stars, and appointed them their motions and courses, that the vicissitudes of the seasons might be clearly signified. And on the fifth day he produced the living creatures, both those that swim, and those that fly: the former in the sea, the latter in the air. He also sorted them as to society, and that their kinds might increase and multiply. On the sixth day he created the four-footed beasts, and made them male and female. On the same day he also formed man. Accordingly Moses says, that in six days the world, and all that is therein, was made; and that the seventh day was a rest, and a release from the labour of such operations, whence it is that we celebrate a rest from our labours on that day, and call it the Sabbath, which word denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue.

Moreover Moses, after the seventh day was over, begins to talk philosophically:* and concerning the formation of man says thus: that God took dust from the ground,† and formed man, and inserted in him a spirit aud a soul. This man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew tongue signified one that is red, because he was formed out of red earth compounded together, for of that kind is virgin and true earth. God also pre

Since Josephus, in his preface, says, that Moses wrote some things enigmatically, some allegorically, and the rest in plain words, since in his account of the first chapter of Genesis, and the three first verses of the second, he gives us no hints of any mystery at all; but when he comes to ver. 4. &c he says, that Moses, after the seventh day was over, began to talk philosophically, it is not improbable that he understood the rest of the second and the third chapters in some enigmatical, allegorical, or philosophical sense. The change of the name of God just at this place from Elobim to Jehovah Elohim, from God to Lord God, in the Hebrew, Samaritan, and Septuagint, also seems to favour some such change in the narration or construction.

↑ Gen. ii. 7.

Josephus supposed man to be compounded of Spirit, soul, and body, with St. Paul, 1 Thess. v. 23, and the rest of the ancients. He elsewhere says also, that the blood of animals was forbidden to be eaten, as having in it soul and spirit.

sented the living creatures, when he had made them, according to their kinds, both male and female, to Adam, and gave them those names by which they are still called. But when he saw that Adam had no female companion, no society, for there was no such created, and that he wondered at the other animals which were male and female, he laid him asleep, and took away one of his ribs, and out of it formed the woman;* whereupon Adam knew her when she was brought to him, and acknowledged that she was made out of himself. Now a woman is called in the Hebrew tongue Issa: but the name of this woman was Eve, which signifies the mother of all living.

Moses says farther, that God planted a paradise in the east, flourishing with all sorts of trees, and that among them was the tree of life, and another of knowledge, whereby was to be known what was good and evil; and that when he had brought Adam and his wife into this garden, he commanded them to take care of the plants. Now the garden was watered by one river, which

Gen. ii. 22.

+ The place wherein the country of Eden, as mentioned by Moses, seems most like to be situated, is Chaldea, not far from the banks of the Euphrates. To this purpose, when we find Rabshekah vaunting his master's actions, have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Gazan and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden, which were in Telassar? As Telassar, in general, signifies any garrison or fortification, so here more particularly, it denotes that strong fort which the children of Eden built in an island of the Euphrates, towards the west of Babylon, as a barrier against the incursions of the Assyrians on that side. And therefore, in all probability the country of Eden lay on the west side, or rather on both sides the Euphrates, after its conjunction with the Tigris, a little below the place where, in process of time, the famous city of Babylon came to be built. Thus we have found out a country called Eden, which for its pleasure and fruitfulness, as all authors agree, answers the character which Moses gives of it.Herodotus, who was an eye witness of it, tells us, that where Euphrates runs out into Tigris, not far from the place where Ninus is seated, that region is, of all that ever he saw, the most excellent: so fruitful in bringing forth corn, that it yields two hundred fold; and so plenteous in grass, that the people are forced to drive their cattle from pasture, lest they should surfeit themselves. B.

Whence this strange notion came, which is not peculiar to Josephus, but Dr. Hudson says, is derived from elder authors; as if four of the greatest rivers in the world, running two of them at vast distances from the other two, by some means or other watered Paradise, is hard to say. Only, since Josephus has already appeared to allegorize this history, and takes notice that these four names had a particular signification: Phison for Ganges, a multitude; Phrath for Euphrates, either a dispersion or a flower; Diglath for Tigris, what is swift with narrowness; and Geon for Nile, what arises from the east; we perhaps mistake him when we suppose he literally means those four rivers, especially as to Geon, or Nile, which arises from

C