direction of Moses, and passed by Arabia into Syria. It would be endless to extract all the passages which might be collected from Philo Byblius, Hecatæus, Symmachus, Chæremon, Eupolemus, Demetrius, Megasthenes, and other writers, who will be referred to in this work.

Artapanus, in his book concerning the Jews, represents the Israelites to have been ill treated under a king of Egypt; that Moses was adopted by the daughter of one of the kings of that country, and that he was called (Musæus by the Greeks,) the master of Orpheus; and after many circumstances of questionable authority, he relates the miracles which Moses performed, and states that the priests beyond Memphis, being called in by the king, threw down what appeared to be a serpent, and changed the colour of the river.

He mentions the miraculous passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, and their wandering forty years in the wilderness, supported by heavenly food.

Artapanus describes Moses to have been of le family, of ruddy countenance, with white locks, and a dignified pre

nd to

performed many mi

:

racles this writer seems also, from the account of Alexander Polyhistor, to have given the story of Joseph, much of which corresponds with what is related in Scripture †.

Eusebius mentions Ezekiel, a tragic poet, who introduces Moses; representing his being discovered on the shallow of the river; his being educated by the daughter of the king; his killing and burying the Egyptian; his watering the flock for Sippora (Zipporah) and marrying her. The same poet records. the miraculous circumstance of the revelation of God to Moses, appointing him to his great commission for the deliverance of the Israelites; his miracles; the injunction of the divine legislator as to the observance of the passover, and the particulars of the Exodus; and he describes, with dramatic effect, the Egyptian soldiers, exclaiming on the banks of the Red Sea, "Let us fly-God with his "powerful right hand covers the Israelites"the passage is closed, and the army is de

66

stroyed." He gives also an account of the wonders, and particularly of the pillar, in the wilderness.

Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. ix. c. 27,

+ Ibid. lib. ix. c. 23.

Ibid. lib. ix. c. 28.

Euscb. Præp. Evang. lib. ix. c. 29.

Polyhistor states, that the Babylonians left the ark with the tables of the law deposited in the hands of Jeremiah *.

Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. ix. c. 39.

CHAP. VIII.

On the Intercourse which the Grecians enjoyed with the Jews, and the Knowledge they derived from it.

THE Grecian writers, from whom principally we deduce the knowledge of what relates to the Heathen religion and morality, and of the circumstances which respect the origin and history of Pagan nations, have conveyed to us many accounts which, however eloquently described, exhibit much of erroneous persuasion, and much of confused and corrupted tradition.

The earliest information, which they possessed, appears to have been obtained from Egypt and Phoenicia, which countries many of them visited. Herodotus* represents their letters to have been of foreign origin, introduced, according to Grotius, by Cadmus, about 1498 years before Christ, if we adopt

* Lib. i. c. 57. Grotius, lib. xv. De Veritat. lib. i. c. 15, in

the notes.

+ Lib. i. c. 58.

the Chronology of Blair; some imagine Cadmus and his followers to have been of the inhabitants of Canaan, who fled when that country was invaded by Joshua; though Josephus disputes these early pretensions, and others ascribe the introduction of letters into Greece to Danaus or Cecrops *. The Grecians themselves, whose vanity was not supported by any information as to their origin, which could claim the sanction of remote antiquity, and who could give but very vague and conjectural accounts with respect to the commencement of many of their chief nations and cities, pretended that the first inhabitants of Hellas were natives of the soil ; by which, perhaps, might be meant, either, that history did not afford any record of their first arrival, or that they derived their existence from the stones fabulously related to have been thrown by Deucalion after the flood, and which renewed the race of men.

All that can be confidently affirmed upon

Isaac Casaubon remarks in his Adversaria, that he observed Hebrew words in the most ancient Greek writers, which had ceased to be in use, or were much changed. See Gregory Sharp's Dissertations upon the Origin and Construction of Languages. P. 18.