seems to allude to the circumstances of this

story.

It has been remarked, that after the battle of the Granicus, the conqueror manifested a respect for the marriage ties, in a manner which might seem to imply a regard to the precept of the law of Moses, which commanded, that when a man had taken a new wife he should not go out to war since Alexander ordered those of his army, who had married that year, to return to Macedonia, to pass the winter with their wives +.

Many of the ancient laws of Attica might be supposed to have been borrowed from the statutes of Moses, as that which Sopater mentions, and to which Terence refers, which directed that the nearest of kindred should marry the widow of a deceased person. The custom, grounded on the principle of this law, seems to have been received with every sanction. sanction. Juno was reputed to be the sister as well as the wife of Jove.

* Deut. xxiv. 5. Joseph. Antiq. lib. iii. c. 7.

After the

+ Prid. Con. Part i. Book vii. Ann. 354. Grot. de Jure

Bell. lib. ii. c. 1. § 12. Cornel. Nepos, Vit. Cimon.

death of Paris, Deiphobus is related to have married Helen. Cimon was married to his half-sister Elpinice *

Another law, which seems to have been borrowed also from the sacred code, enjoined that a priest should marry only a virgin and a citizen. Others are well known which enforced, in imitation of the Hebrew laws, a reverence for the gods and for

a respect for dead bodies t.

parents, and

The precept, ascribed to Pythagoras by Hermippus, that an ass is not to be passed when it has fallen on its knees, is sometimes supposed to have had its origin from the circumstance of the falling of Balaam's ass, mentioned in Numbers §; but probably only a lesson of humanity was inculcated.

The direction likewise of Jamblicus not to injure a fruit tree belonging to an enemy, should seem to have originated in the humane and considerate commandment of Moses, designed to check the injuries of war by prohibiting of trees during

the siege of a city *, which administered to the support of human life.

It may be cursorily observed, that the laws of Lycurgus and Solon, though in some instances improved by the precepts of Moses, illustrate the superiority of the Hebrew code.

There might be the greater disposition to borrow from the laws of Moses, as he was acknowledged to be a lawgiver of great antiquity, and known to have laid claim to the authority of Jehovah †.

Aristobulus tells us that Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato appear to have viewed all the law of Moses with a scrutinizing eye +. It has been observed, however, that we must not therefore conclude that these philosophers, who were naturally dazzled with the splendour and distinction which their nations enjoyed, were inclined to believe that God had preferred a people, as the depositaries of his laws, upon whom they looked down with disdainful feelings. The Athenians and other nations used in ancient

* Deut. xx. 19.

+ Diodor. Sic. Hist. lib. i. p. 105. Edit. Wetsten. Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. xiii. c. 12.

times the Mosaic mode of computation by evening and morning, as did also the Druids and ancient Gauls and Germans *. The uniformity indeed, might have resulted from the custom of reckoning by lunar revolutions.

The transmission of knowledge from the Egyptians to the Grecians may be easily traced, and there can be no doubt that through the intercourse with Egypt, and with the cities of Syria, many opportunities were opened to the Greeks of obtaining information from the Jews.

Pythagoras, Thales, Solon, Eudoxus, and Plato, visited Egypt, with many other distinguished Grecians, who raised the reputation of their countries, and brought back accounts which became gradually blended with their history.

The Greeks had no historian, whose works are now extant, who lived within four hundred years of the Trojan war; and Solon is related to have found, with some surprise, that the names and history of most of the

Tacit. de Mor. Germ. Cæsar. Comm. &c.

+ Diod. Sicul. lib. i. § 98. p. 110. Edit. Wetsten. Clem. Alex. Strom. Edit. Pot. lib. i. p. 356.

Grecian deities had belonged to heroes in Egypt.

Plato represents the Egyptians to have reproached the Grecians as being children; and Lucian, in one place, alludes to the origin of philosophy from the East, and in another admits that the Greeks derived their convictions as to sacred things from the Egyptians*. Plutarch reports that the Egyptian

fables bear some faint and obscure resemblance to the truth; and we might conclude therefore, from his authority, that much of of what appears enveloped in Grecian fables was derived from Egypt. Zonaras states the religious rites of the Greeks to have been borrowed from Egypt, into which country they were introduced from Chaldæa †.

Josephus therefore had sufficient ground to remark, that the Jews were not barely known to the Greeks, or only to the common sort of them, but likewise to their wise men, and to philosophers of the first rank, and with marks too, of singular friendship, and esteem +.

* De Dea Syria, a work commonly attributed to Lucian. Joseph. cont. Apion, lib. i. Ibid. lib. i.