merely marked the ages of the antediluvian patriarchs in the line of Seth when their sons were born. It would have been easy, therefore, to have calculated the exact period of the existence of the antediluvian world, had there been no variations in the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Greek Septuagint versions of the sacred historians; but as these differ materially from each other, there has been a corresponding difference of opinion. The following table of the years of the antediluvian patriarchs, extracted from the large work entitled "Ancient Universal History," is here submitted to the reader, as corrected by Dr Wells and Mr Whiston, the learned translator of Josephus, to which the calculation of Josephus is prefixed:

Ages of the Antediluvian Patriarchs at their Sons' Births, according to the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint Versions; and Josephus.

Adam..

Heb. Sam. Sept. Jos.

Seth.

190 90

Enoch.....

65

65

165

65

182

Noah was aged at

the Flood........

600 600 600 600

1656

1307 2262 1556

Lamech. Noah.

Thus, according to the Hebrew version of the Book of Genesis, the old world lasted 1656 years; according to the Samaritan, 1307; to the Septuagint, 2262; and according to the Jewish historian Josephus, 1556 years. It is difficult to conceive how there should be such a discrepancy between the Septuagint and the other versions, for it far exceeds that of the Hebrew and the calculation of Josephus, while it nearly doubles that of the Samaritan. According to these three versions, the years which those patriarchs lived after the birth of

Jabal, Jubal. Tubal- Cain, Naamah. Methuselah.

Japhet Shem-Ham.

Infidel and sceptical writers, in their sneers at the Mosaic account of the Antediluvian world, have stated various doubts as to the amount of its population. Some have alleged that the world must have been thinly peopled, while others have confidently asserted that the Deluge was only partial, and did not extirpate the whole population except those who were in the ark. There is every reason, however, to believe, that the Antediluvian world contained a greater number of inhabitants than are supported on our earth in its present state. This

may be fairly inferred from the length of the lives of the Antediluvian patriarchs, which was in a proportion of ten to one of the present standard of human life; and the Antediluvians must accordingly have doubled themselves in about the tenth part of the time in which mankind now double themselves. They began to procreate children, and left off as late in proportion as men now do; and we read that the several children succeeded their parents as quickly one after another as they usually do at the present time. At the death of Abel, therefore, although Adam was not then one hundred and thirty years old, there must have been a considerable number of persons on the earth, which accounts for the Almighty setting a mark upon Cain to prevent him from being killed; and the number of mankind at the period of the Deluge, even taking the Samaritan chronology, the lowest of the four authorities formerly quoted, would amount to upwards of one hundred thousand millions, or nearly twenty times as many as the probable population of our present earth. It is generally ascertained that mankind double themselves every three hundred and sixty or three hundred and seventy years, or, making allowance for wars, famines, plagues, and other scourges and accidents, in four hundred years. Admitting, therefore, the period of doubling mankind from the Creation to the Deluge to be ten times shorter on account of the length of their lives, we have a series of forty numbers, beginning at two, the number whom God at first created, doubling themselves in forty or forty-one years. The following table calculated by Whiston, the learned commentator on Josephus, will give the reader some idea of the above statement, while it completely proves the weakness of those sneers and cavillings which men of irreligious principles allow themselves to express on subjects which can be proved as satisfactorily as any mathematical demonstration, but which they will not take the trouble to investigate. The reader will perceive that other tables could be con

In a work published in 1750 by the Rev. Patrick Cockburn, M.A., vicar of Long Horsley in Northumberland, entitled, "An Inquiry into the Truth and Certainty of the Mosaic Deluge, wherein the Arguments of the learned Vossius and others for a Topical Deluge are examined, and some vulgar errors relating to that Grand Catastrophe are discussed," several objections are urged to the principles on which the preceding calculation is constructed. That writer has set forth two tables on the probable increase of mankind in the Antediluvian world; the first based on the supposition that men double themselves every fifty years, and the other, that they do so in forty years; and, therefore, assuming

num

The reader will observe that this table, which differs very materially in numbers from that given by Whiston, is calculated at the long interval of fifty years, to shew that, even by underrating the bers of mankind, there were many millions born in the Antediluvian times, although only one half of the sum total, 429,496 millions, were alive at the time of the Deluge. The second table, calculated by this ingenious writer, proceeds on the supposition that mankind double themselves every forty years, which is certainly much nearer the truth. This table is constructed on precisely the same principles, always doubling the sum total; but with this difference, that forty is the sum assumed instead of fifty, as in the preceding; thus, setting out with the year of the world 500, and admitting two hun

dred persons to be then on the earth, in the 540, there would be four hundred persons in the world. According to this calculation, in the year 2020, the sum total of the whole human race would amount to 54,975,581,388,800. By allowing for obstructions and deficiencies in the course of nature, and for all casualties and accidents, the author reduces the number now mentioned to 27,487,790,694,400, or twenty-seven millions, or millions of millions, four hundred and eighty-seven thousand seven hundred and ninety millions six hundred and ninety-four thousand four hundred, which he supposes to have been the total number of the human race born in the Antediluvian times from the creation of man, or rather from the birth of Cain and Abel, to the period of the Deluge, which he calculates to have happened in the year of the world 2256. He then allows for those who died before the Deluge, and reduces the number again to one half, on which supposition there would be alive on the earth at that event 13,743,895,347, a number far exceeding that of the inhabitants of the present world. The first of these tables, he farther tells us, is brought down no lower than to the year 2050, and the second to the year 2020, though there remain by the first two hundred and six, and by the second two hundred and thirty-six years to the era of the Deluge; the reason of which he states by urging, that in the last two hundred years of the Antediluvian world mankind would not increase in the proportion as they had previously done, because, as the sacred historian expresses it, " violence was then great upon the earth," and thousands, perhaps millions, would be cut off by untimely deaths, for which cause the destruction of the world was determined by the Almighty, in his wise and inscrutable purposes, one hundred and twenty years before the Flood came, at least it was then for the first time openly declared, and time afforded for the vast population to repent.

Much discussion has taken place as to the longevity of the Antediluvians.

While infidel writers have treated the facts recorded on this subject by Moses as little better than fables, other speculators have attempted to account for it in a variety of ways, and have maintained that the numerical years and days of the Antediluvian times were much shorter than ours. It has been asserted that the remarkable longevity of the Antediluvians resulted from their temperate habits, and the particular kind of food, chiefly fruits of the earth, on which they subsisted but this can hardly be admitted when we recollect the dreadful licentiousness and debauchery which prevailed, and which provoked God to destroy them. It has also been asserted that their longevity resulted from the effective virtues of the herbs and plants of those times or from the inherent strength of their constitutions-or from the peculiar salubrity of the Antediluvian air, which after the Flood became unwholesome in many parts. How the Deluge should have affected the air it is not easy to determine. Doubtless the other reasons assigned were concurrent causes of their longevity, but the whole must be viewed as a remarkable arrangement of Divine Providence, ordered for wise purposes, which to us are inscrutable and mysterious. In ancient and modern times since the era of the Deluge, there have been many remarkable instances of longevity, which shew that length of life does not always depend on any particular climate, situation, or occupation.

As to the peculiar habits and customs of the Antediluvians, all that has been stated respecting them is merely ingenious speculation. Not a vestige of them remained after the Deluge; and it appears that Noah brought none of them of any importance with him when he came out of the ark. It has been debated whether flesh was permitted to be eaten before the Deluge. This argument has originated in the nature of sacrifice in the ancient times, and from the permission given by God to Noah after he left the ark. That the sacrifice of animals, which is of divine institution, prevailed in the

Antediluvian times, is proved by the example of Abel, who offered unto God one of the firstlings of his flock; but the controversy in general must remain in the obscurity with which it is impenetrably enveloped. The knowledge given us in the sacred writings of the religion, arts, sciences, and policy of the Antediluvians, is also limited and imperfect. Some have maintained that all the patriarchs from Adam to Noah had stated places and times set apart for religious worship, which seems to be sanctioned by the institution of the Sabbath, and also that there was a regular priesthood; both of which assertions may be true, but no allusions are made to these subjects in the scriptures. We have seen that the descendants of Cain discovered the art of working in metals, and prosecuted the study of music. It is likely that the Antediluvians were acquainted with astronomy, and with many arts and sciences which are known at the present time. We have no information as to their political and civil institutions, nor any certainty as to the language they spoke, which, whatsoever it may have been-the Hebrew, as some affirm, or any other undoubtedly appears to have been universal. On the whole, we must resolve all our inquiries into the singular arrangements and wise purposes of God, who has given us all the information on this subject with which He thought it necessary we should be acquainted. He has been pleased to inform us of the creation of the world, of the formation of our first parents, of their fall from the original state of purity in which they were created, its causes and consequences, and its hopes, through the sacrifice of his Son. He has told us of Adam and his descendants, the two great families of Cain and Seth; but he has, most wisely without all doubt, concealed from us the habits, manners, customs, laws, and peculiar institutions of those ancient races of men, or the excesses and wickedness of which they were guilty, and which caused him utterly to destroy them, with the exceptions stated in the inspired

record, by involving them in one dreadful and universal catastrophe. See CREATION, EARTH, FLOOD or DELUGE, SEA, WORLD. ANTILIBANUS, a chain of mountains in Cœlo-Syria, among which the river Jordan has its source, running parallel to another chain of mountains called Libanus. Each of these chains or ridges of mountains extends from north to south. Antilibanus is towards the east, and commences nearly to the north of Upper Galilee, from which it is separated by Mount Hermon; and it reaches almost to the ancient site of Heliopolis, where it terminates. The long and immense valley between the ridges of Antilibanus and Libanus is called Cœlo-Syria. These mountains are chiefly inhabited by a semi-christian tribe called Druses. In the Scriptures, these ridges are classed together under the common name of Lebanon. See LIBANUS or LEBANON.

If we

after his father, when it became the residence of that dynasty of Syrian monarchs who succeeded Alexander the Great. It was sometimes called Tetrapolis, from the circumstance of its being divided into various parts, or quarters, one built by Seleucus Nicanor, a second by those who settled in it after it became the metropolis of the Syro-Macedonian kingdom, a third by Seleucus Callenicus, and a fourth by Antiochus Epiphanes. These several quarters or divisions of the city were each enclosed by a distinct wall, and a general one surrounded them all. It was sometimes also called Antiochia Daphne, or Antioch near Daphnis, from the celebrated village of Daphnis, four or five miles distant from it, but reckoned a suburb of the city, where Seleucus planted a grove, and erected a splendid temple to Apollo and Diana, and which became the chief resort of the citizens for pleasure and amusement. Antioch is situated on both sides of the river Orontes, now called the Ahssy, a stream of no great importance, although described by Ovid, in the Second Book of his "Metamorphoses," to be the largest river then known. It is about twenty miles distant from the Mediterranean Sea, into which the river Orontes or Ahssy empties itself, and is equally distant from Constantinople, the capital of Turkey, and Alexandria in Egypt, about seven hundred miles. It is said to have been in its ancient state almost square, about ten miles in circumference; and part of it on the north stood upon a high mountain. Antioch was admirably fortified both by nature and art, and in the days of its ancient glory was adorned with galleries, fountains, sumptuous palaces, and magnificent temples. All the writers of antiquity who mention this city, talk of its celebrity throughout the world, and allege that no city exceeded it in fertility of soil, trade, riches, or commercial enterprise. Pliny says that Antioch continued for sixteen hundred years "queen of the East." Antioch is one of the most celebrated cities in the annals of the Christian church. Here, on a memorable

ANTIOCH, for or instead of a chariot, or equal in speed with a chariot, now called ANTAKIA by the Arabs, is the name of a celebrated city of antiquity, formerly the capital of Syria, and was built by Seleucus Nicanor in honour of his father Antiochus, about three hundred years before the Christian era. are to credit St Jerome, Antioch was formerly called Riblath, or Riblatha, and hence he alleges that this was the place where Nebuchadnezzar put to death Zedekiah's children in his presence, and afterwards put out the eyes of that unfortunate prince. Antioch is mentioned only in the Books of the Maccabees and in the New Testament, whereas Riblath, or Riblatha, is mentioned in the Book of Numbers (xxxiv. 11); in the Second Book of Kings, 2 Kings xxiii. 33; xxv. 6, 20, 21; and in the Prophecy of Jeremiah, Jer. xxxix. 5; lii. 9, 10, 26, 27. Theodoret says, that in his time there was a city called Riblah near Emesa in Syria, which is very contrary to St Jerome's statement. It is certain that this city was not known under the name of Antioch before the reign of Seleucus Nicanor, who built and designated it

VOL. I.

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