harassed by the Assyrians under Sennacherib, their king. It had become a mean village in Jerome's time, and is now a mass of ruins, which are shewn on its ancient site in a valley surrounded by mountains.

ANEM, or ENGANNIM, a town or city of the tribe of Issachar, situated in a place not very far from Bethel, and assigned to the Levites by lot, Josh. xv. 34; 1 Chron. vi. 73.

ANER, answer, song, affliction, of light, a town or city belonging to the halftribe of Manasseh, west of the river Jordan, which was given to the Levites. It is evidently the same place as Taanach, 1 Chron. vi. 70.

ANIM, a town belonging to the tribe of Judah, situated among the mountains, but its site is unknown, Josh. xv. 50.

ANTEDILUVIANS, is a compound Latin word formed of ante, before, and diluvium, a deluge; and signifies those generations of men who lived before the Flood, or Deluge, which destroyed the inhabitants of the old world, with the exception of Noah and his family. This word does not occur in the sacred writings, but it is generally expressed by the terms flood and old world. All the authentic information which we have concerning those early races of mankind, who immediately descended from our great progenitor Adam, is exclusively contained in the beginning of the Book of Genesis, every thing else which is stated concerning the Antediluvians being founded on vague conjecture or uncertain and fabulous traditions, to which we shall immediately refer. Taking, therefore, the account of the old world as given by Moses, we find Cain, after the murder committed by him of his brother Abel, "going out from the presence of the Lord;" in other words, leaving the country where he had been born, and where Adam resided after his expulsion from Eden, and emigrating to a country called the Land of Nod, to the eastward of Eden, the exact locality of which cannot be ascertained, but which the oriental geographers generally reckon to have been

the low country of Susiana, or Chusistan. St Jerome, following the Chaldee meaning of the word Nod, which signifies a vagabond or fugitive, a wanderer on the earth, seems to have been of opinion that there was no particular country called Nod, and that it was only a name to denote Cain's wandering habits, in virtue of the sentence passed upon him by God for murdering his brother, that he was to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth. But this theory is overthrown by Cain's subsequent proceedings; for we find the Almighty not only denouncing any one who killed him, which must evidently have an allusion to the descendants of Adam's other children, who might be prompted to revenge Abel's death, but also setting a peculiar mark upon the unhappy offender, "lest any finding him. should kill him." After his emigration to the land or country called Nod, we are informed by the sacred historian that his wife bore a son, who was called Enoch; and that he built a city, as it is termed, but which must have been a mere primitive settlement, such as those which have always existed in rude and pastoral ages, which he called Enoch. It is of course impossible to conjecture what kind of city this was, but it is certain that it was the first built in the world, for it is the first mentioned in the sacred writings. The arts and sciences, as we may suppose, could make little progress at the period to which we now refer, but the necessities of men would induce them to invent many things which were afterwards improved, and introduced into general use. Lamech, the sixth in descent from Cain, who is introduced to our notice as having two wives, Adah and Zillah-the first recorded instance of polygamy in those early times-had a son by Adah, Jabal, who is described as being the father of "such as dwell in tents, and have cattle;" in other words, he originated the shepherd or pastoral state, which is the first step towards civilization and improvement. Jabal had a brother named Jubal, and in him we find a rapid advancement not only in the

necessary implements required for the exercise of human industry, but even in the refinements of society, namely, music -he invented the harp and the organ. Lamech's son by Zillah, his other wife, was named Tubal-Cain, and he is said to be the father or inventor of brass and iron implements. He had also a daughter by this wife named Naamah, who is generally supposed to have invented spinning and weaving. Here we have in the seventh line of descendants from Cain, and eighth from Adam, a rapid progression in the invention of useful arts; we have cities founded, agriculture followed, music studied, and various sorts of implements invented. The making of clothes for personal use had been suggested even by nature to our first parents in the garden of Paradise, and therefore we need not doubt that this would be neglected, even in a country and under a climate which required less external covering than those of other latitudes. The human race was at the same time increasing, so that at the time of the Deluge, which was nearly 2000 years after the creation of the world, the descendants of Cain alone must have consisted of incredible numbers, spread over a vast surface of the globe, having cities, towns, and villages, cultivating the arts and sciences, subject to various forms of government, and exerting their energies in a variety of modes, of which we can form no idea from our want of conclusive information, but, judging from the history of the world after the Flood, when Noah was placed almost in the same position as Adam, we may easily reason from analogy as to the progress of the human race before it. Turning, therefore, from that great branch of the human race, of which Cain was the progenitor, and which was destined to be utterly extirpated by the Flood, the posterity of Seth, of whom Noah was one, being alone preserved, we find a son born to Adam named Seth, in the room of Abel, from whom all the generations of the world are descended; for it is a singular arrangement of Divine Providence, and one which strongly marks the

Almighty's displeasure at crime and the violation of his justice, that not a nation, tribe, or human being in the world, is descended from the family of Cain. Of the history of Seth, and the avocations of his descendants, we have no information in the sacred record. It is, however, probable that they were chiefly cultivators of the ground and rearers of cattle; and, indeed, we have a kind of specific hint to that effect at the birth of Noah, the tenth in lineal descent from Adam, who was so called by his father Lamech, the son of Methuselah, because "this same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed." The family or descendants of Seth must have been equally as numerous as that of Cain; but hitherto those two families had kept themselves completely distinct; they never intermarried, nor do they appear to have had any communication with each other. The descendants of Cain, without exception, sank into idolatry, and we find them expressly called the sons of men; while the descendants of Seth, with whom the true worship of God had always been preserved and retained, are explicitly termed the sons of God. By some seductions and enticements those two great families re united. We are told by the sacred writer, that "when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose." This was the first step towards provoking that awful visitation, the general Deluge; the wickedness occasioned by these intermarriages, and the abominable rites they practised, roused the resentment of the Almighty. The first check which he imposed upon the degenerate descendants of Cain and Seth was the shortening of the duration of human life, limiting it to one hundred and twenty years. The fruits of these intermarriages are also described. "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also, after that, when the sons of God came in unto the

daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." The glimpses which this short description affords us are full of interest. Here we have the earth teeming with inhabitants, but the worship of God generally abandoned, or at least only observed by a few descendants of Seth's family; we see licentiousness, immorality, and vice, never the effects of barbarism but of over refine ment and luxury, universally prevailing: the cr mes and excesses of which the Antediluvians were guilty provoking the wrath of Jehovah, because the "wickedness of man upon the earth is great;" it "repents him that he made man ;" and he resolves to destroy "man whom he has created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repented him that he had made them." That was the cause of the great Flood or Deluge the luxurious licentiousness of the Antediluvians; and God resolved to make a lasting memorial of them to all future ages, that remote generations might see how he punished the first races of men, by not only visiting them with a dreadful personal calamity, but also, with the exception of Noah and his family, by utterly extirpating them, and peopling the earth anew.

Various opinions have been stated as to the external appearance of the World or Earth before the Flood, which the reader will find discussed at length under the subjects referred to at the end of this article. Having traced the history of the Antediluvians throughout a period of nearly 2000 years, we proceed to some subjects exclusively connected with the ancient world. First, as to the Antediluvian period, it is generally asserted that the Deluge took place in the year of the world 1656, but some learned writers, well entitled to credit and respect for their opinions, reckon that calamity to have happened nearer 2000 years after the Creation. The Egyptians pretend to have had a succession of kings who reigned in Egypt before the Flood.

They at one period possessed an ancient chronicle, now unfortunately lost, in which they set forth thirty dynasties of princes who ruled in Egypt, during a series of 113 generations, and through the immense interval of 36,525 years, in which period Egypt was successively governed by the Auritæ, the Mestræi, and the Egyptians. An ancient writer named Manetho also asserts, that in the antediluvian history of Egypt, there were sixteen dynasties or reigns of princes, the first seven of whom were called gods, and the other nine demigods, and they all reigned 1985 years. The Chinese advance the most extravagant accounts of the old world, as connected with their own claims to high antiquity. They pretend to carry their history back even millions of years before the period assigned by the sacred historian as that of the creation of our great progenitor Adam. Some of their writers have traced their history more than ninety millions of years before the Christian era, and, till very recently, when their history is becoming better understood and more intelligible, the great majority of European writers were disposed to concede to them their claims of having a regular and civilized government 3000 years before our Saviour's birth. According to the Chinese historians-for tradition, however absurd or fallacious, is always interesting, especially when it is connected with a great and important inquiry-the first monarch of China, which in their language means the whole universe, was called Puon-ku, a Chinese word denoting the highest antiquity. Puon-ku was succeeded by Tienchoang, which signifies the Emperor of Heaven, who was the inventor of letters. He was succeeded by Tihoang, Emperor of the Earth, who is said to have been skilled in astronomy, and who divided the day and night, appointing thirty days to make the period of one moon, and fixing the winter solstice at the eleventh moon. Tihoang was succeeded by Ginc-hoang, Sovereign of Men, who shared the government with nine brothers, all of whom taught their subjects

to build cities and houses, and initiated them in various useful arts. The reigns of these four emperors make up one of what is called by the Chinese, ki, "ages" or "periods," of which there were nine before the reign of Fo-hi, or Noah. In referring to the ancient authors who have recorded the Phoenician and Babylonian antiquities, we find similar extraordinary traditions of the antediluvian times, which all shew that the human mind, even in the rude ages after the Deluge, was extremely puzzled on the subject, and was in a state of complete bewilderment as to its causes and consequences, before the simple and short but interesting narrative was given by the inspired historian in the Book of Genesis. An

ancient writer, Sanchonsatho by name -who is supposed to have been contemporary with Gideon or David, but whose very existence is denied by some writers, who consider his history as a fiction by Philo for discrediting the book written by Josephus against Apion-wrote the Phonician antiquities. "His history," observes an author, "commences with the origin of the world and of mankind, but as it was written with a view of apologizing for idolatry, he deduces the history, not from Adam in the line of Seth, but in the idolatrous line of Cain, nor does he make the least mention of the Deluge. The first pair of mortals with whom his history begins, are called by Philo his translator Protogonus and Æon. Their offspring were denominated Genus and Genea, and dwelt in Phoenicia. From Genus sprung Phos, Phur, and Phlox, that is, light, fire, and flame. These found out the method of producing fire, by rubbing pieces of wood against each other, a practice which still exists among the most barbarous nations, and taught men its use. Their sons were of enormous height and bulk, and gave to the mountains, of which they took possession, their own names of Cassius and Libanus, Antilibanus, and Brathys. From these again, in the fifth generation, proceeded Memrumus and Hypsuranius, who were so denominated

by their mothers, who are said to have lived in a state of prostitution. Hypsuranius inhabited Tyre, and there invented the art of making huts with reeds and rushes, and the papyrus. He quarrelled with his brother Usous, who was the first inventor of a covering for the body made of the skins of wild beasts; and he also made a raft of boughs, and ventured upon it into the sea. He likewise consecrated two rude stones or pillars to fire and wind, and worshipped them, pouring out to them the blood of such wild beasts as were caught in hunting. Afterwards, however, stumps of wood and pillars were also consecrated and worshipped as deities. In the next generation succeeded Agreus and Haliens, the inventors of the arts of hunting and fishing, from whom the names of huntsmen and fishermen were derived. These begot two brothers, who formed the seventh generation, and who discovered iron and the method of forging it; one of these was called Chryson, the same with Hephaestus or Vulcan, and exercised himself in words, and charms, and divinations; he found out the hook, bait, and fishing-line, built light boats, and was the first man that sailed; so that after his death he was worshipped as a god, and called Zeus, Michius, or Jupiter the Engineer; and some say that his brothers invented the art of making bricks. From this generation descended two brothers, one called Technites, or the Artist, and the other Genus Autochthon, or the home-born man of the earth. Those found out the art of mingling stubble or small twigs, with the clay of which they made bricks and tiling. One of their posterity on the north was called Agrus, field, and the other Agrouerus, or Agrites, husbandman, who had a statue much worshipped, and a temple carried about by one or more yoke of oxen in Phoenicia; and who among those of Byblus is called by way of eminence the greatest of the gods. These first made court-yards about houses, fences, and caves or cellars. Husbandmen, and such as use dogs in hunting, derive their

nian.

origin from them, and they are also called Aletæ, or Titans. From them succeeded, in the tenth generation, Amynus and Magus, who taught men to form villages and to feed flocks. Of Amynus and Magus were descended Misor and Sydec, and the son of Misor was Taautus, or Thoth. Protogonus and Eon of the Phoenician genealogy were doubtless Adam and Eve, and Misor, the Mizraim of Moses. From Protogonus to Misor, Sanchonsatho makes eleven generations, and from Adam to Mizraim Moses makes twelve; so that Sanchonsatho falls short of Moses only by one generation, which is owing to his not having recorded the Flood." Thus far the Phoenician tradition, which remarkably illustrates the Mosaic account of the antediluvian world; let us now attend to the Babylo"The Babylonian antiquities," we are informed, 6C were collected by Berosus, by birth a Chaldean, who lived in the time of Alexander the Great. He gives a series of ten kings who reigned in Chaldea before the Flood, and computes their reigns by sari or decades of years, making the whole sum 1200 years, or more accurately 1199 years, a number which is not opposed to the Mosaic chronology. As these ten successions of kings correspond to the ten generations between Adam and the Flood, the first king, whose name was Alorus, has been supposed to be the same with Adam, and Xisuthrus the same with Noah. Alorus pretended to dominion by divine right, and maintained that God himself had declared him the patron of the people, a prerogative which peculiarly belonged to Adam. Alasparus, the second king, was succeeded by Amelon, or Amelarus, of the city of Pantibibla, probably the Sipphara of Ptolemy, and supposed by Sir Isaac Newton to be the Sepharvaim of Scripture. After Amelon and Metalarus, who were both of Pantibibla, and the successors of Alasparus, arose Daonus, an inhabitant of the same city, and a shepherd. The seventh prince, called Eudereschus, was of the same city; the eighth or ninth was of

another city named Laranchi, and the last of them, Ohartes or Ardates, was succeeded by his son Xisuthrus, in whose time the great Deluge happened." The same ancient writer thus describes the origin of the arts and sciences among the Antediluvians. "There appeared," says he, "out of the Red Sea, at a place near the confines of Babylonia, a certain animal, whose name was Oannes. His body resembled that of a wonderful fish, and beneath his head another grew; his feet were like those of a man, and proceeded from the tail of the fish body, and he had a human voice. This animal conversed with the men of the day, and communicated the knowledge of letters, arts, and sciences; he taught men to dwell together in cities, to erect temples, to introduce laws, to acquire geometry, and to gather seeds and fruits; in short, he imparted to mankind whatever was necessary and convenient for a civilized life. When the sun set, this animal, which was of an amphibious kind, retired into the sea, and remained there during the night. This animal not only delivered his instructions by word of mouth, but wrote concerning the origin of things, and of political economy. Other authors have also mentioned this Oannes, with some trivial differences in their accounts. Hyginus writes that Euahanes, a name not very different from Oannes, came out of the sea in Chaldea, and explained astrology. According to Abydenus, a second animal, called Aunedotes, and resembling the demi-god Oannes, arose out of the sea in the reign of Amelon; and in the time of Daonus, four similar animals arose from the sea, whose names were Euedocus, Eneugumus, Eneubulus, and Anementus; and under Euedereschus, there appeared another animal like the former called Odacon; and that all these explained particularly what Oannes had delivered in a more summary and concise manner.”

Moses, the sacred historian of the old world, has not precisely recorded the times of the various transactions which took place before the Flood, but has