was long before. In the first Deucalion's time happened that great inundation in Thessaly; by which, in effect, every soul in those parts perished but Deucalion, Pyrrha his wife, and some few others. It is affirmed, that at the time of this flood in Thessaly, those people exceeded in all kind of wickedness and villainy; and as the impiety of men is the forcible attractive of God's vengeance, so did all that nation, for their foul sins, perish by waters: as in the time of Noah, the corruption and cruelty of all mankind drew on them that general destruction by the flood universal. Only Deucalion and Pyrrha his wife, whom God spared, were both of them esteemed to be lovers of virtue, of justice, and of religion. Of whom Ovid: Non illo melior quisquam, nec amantior æqui No man was better, nor more just than he; It is also affirmed, that Prometheus foretold his son Deucalion of this overflowing, and advised him to provide for his own safety; who hereupon prepared himself a kind of vessel, which Lucian, in his dialogue of Timon, calls cibotium, and others larnax. And because to these circumstances, they afterwards add the sending out of the dove, to discover the waters fall and decrease, I should verily think that this story had been but an imitation of Noah's flood devised by the Greeks, did not the times so much differ, and St. Augustine, with others of the fathers, and reverend writers, approve this story of Deucalion. Among other his children, Deucalion had these two of note; Helen, of whom Greece had first the name of Hellas; and Melantho, on whom Neptune is said to have begot Delphus, which gave name to Delphos, so renowned among the heathen for the oracle of Apollo therein founded. And.that which was no less strange and marvellous than this flood, was that great burning and conflagration which about this time also happened under Phaeton; not only in Ethiopia, but in Istria, a region in Italy, and about Cumæ, k August. de Civitate Dei, l. 18. c. 10. ex Eusebio et Hieronymo. and the mountains of Vesuvius; of both which the Greeks, after their manner, have invented many strange fables. SECT. VI. Of Hermes Trismegistus. BUT of all other which this age brought forth among the heathen, Mercurius was the most famous and renowned: the same which was also called Trismegistus, or Ter maximus; and of the Greeks, Hermes. Many there were of this name; and how to distinguish, and set them in their own times, both St. Augustine and Lactantius find it difficult. For that Mercury, which was esteemed the god of thieves, the god of wrestlers, of merchants, and seamen, and the god of eloquence, (though all by one name confounded,) was not the same with that Mercury, of whose many works some fragments are now extant. Cicero, Clemens Alexandrinus, Arnobius, and certain of the Greeks, reckon five Mercuries; of which two were famous in Egypt, and there worshipped; one, the son of Nilus, whose name the Egyptians feared to utter, as the Jews did their Tetragrammaton; the other, that Mercury which slew Argos in Greece, and flying into Egypt, is said to have delivered literature to the Egyptians, and to have given them laws. But Diodorus affirms, that Orpheus, and others after him, brought learning and letters out of Egypt into Greece; which Plato also confirmeth, saying, that letters were not found out by that Mercury which slew Argus, but by that ancient Mercury, otherwise Theuet, whom Philo Biblius writeth Taautus, the Egyptians Thoyth, the Alexandrians Thot, and the Greeks (as before) Hermes". And to this Taautus, Sanconiatho, who lived about the war of Troy, gives the invention of letters. But St. Augustine making two Mercuries, which were both Egyptians, calls neither of them the son of Nilus, nor acknowledgeth either of them to have slain Argus. For he finds this Mercury, the slayer of Argus, to be the grand ILud. Vives out of Cicero, in Aug. de Civitate Dei, 1. 8. c. 26. child of that Atlas which lived while Moses was yet young. And yet Lud. Vives upon St. Augustine seems to understand them to be the same with those whom Cicero, Alexandrinus, and the rest have remembered. But that conjecture of theirs, that any Grecian Mercury brought letters into Egypt, hath no ground. For it is manifest (if there be any truth in profane antiquity) that all the knowledge which the Greeks had, was transported out of Egypt, or Phoenicia, and not out of Greece, nor by any Grecian, into Egypt. For they all confess that Cadmus brought letters first into Boeotia, either out of Egypt or out of Phonicia; it being true, that between Mercurius, that lived at once with Moses, and Cadmus, there were these descents cast; Crotopus king of the Argives, with whom Moses lived, and in whose time, about his tenth year, Moses died; after Crotopus, Sthenelus, who reigned eleven years; after him Danaus fifty years; after him Lynceus; in whose time, and after him in the time of Minos king of Crete, this Cadmus arrived in Boeotia. And therefore it cannot be true, that any Mercurius about Moses's time, flying out of Greece for the slaughter of Argus, brought literature out of Greece into Egypt. Neither did either of those two Mercuries of Egypt whom St. Augustine remembereth, the one the grandfather, the other the nephew or grandchild, come out of Greece. Eupolemus and Artapanus note, that Moses found out letters, and taught the use of them to the Jews; of whom the Phoenicians, their neighbours, received them, and the Greeks of the Phoenicians by Cadmus. But this invention was also ascribed to Moses, for the reason before remembered; that is, because the Jews and the Phoenicians had them first from him. For every nation gave unto those men the honour of first inventors, from whom they received the profit. Ficinus makes that Mercury, upon part of whose works he commenteth, to have been four descents after Moses; which he hath out of n Virgil, who calls Atlas, that lived with Moses, the maternal grandfather of the first famous Mercury, whom others, as Diodorus, call the counn Virg. 1. 4. RALEGH, HIST. WORLD, VOL. II. sellor and instructor of that renowned Isis, wife of Osiris. But Ficinus giveth no reason for his opinion herein. But that the elder Mercury instructed Isis, Diodorus Siculus affirmeth, and that such an inscription was found on a pillar erected on the tomb of Isis. Lud. Vives, upon the 26th chapter of the eighth book of St. Augustine de Civitate Dei, conceiveth that this Mercury, whose works are extant, was not the first which was entitled Ter Maximus, but his nephew or grandchild. P Sanchoniaton, an ancient Phoenician, who lived shortly after Moses, hath other fancies of this Mercury; affirming that he was the scribe of Saturn, and called by the Phoenicians, Taautus; and by the Egyptians, Thoot, or Thoyt. It may be, that the many years which he is said to have lived, to wit, 300 years, gave occasion to some writers to find him in one time, and to others in other times. But by those which have collected the grounds of the Egyptian philosophy and divinity, he is found more ancient than Moses, because the inventor of the Egyptian wisdom, wherein it is said that Moses was excellently learned. It is true, that although this Mercury, or Hermes, doth in his divinity differ in many particulars from the scriptures, especially in the approving of images, which Moses of all things most detested; yet whosoever shall read him with an even judgment, will rather resolve that these works which are now extant, were by the Greeks and Egyptian priests corrupted, and those fooleries inserted, than that ever they were by the hand of Hermes written, or by his heart and spirit devised. For there is no man of understanding, and master of his own wits, that hath affirmed in one and the same tract, those things which are directly contrary in doctrine and in nature. For out of doubt (Moses excepted) there was never any man of those elder times that hath attributed more, and in a style more reverend and divine, unto Almighty God, than he hath done. And therefore 0 Æneid. Ficin. in Præfat. Pœ mand. Mercurii Trismegisti. P Or Sanchoniatho. See Euseb. de Præp. Evang. 1. 1. c. 6. 9 Vives in I. 8. c. 26. Aug. de Civitate Dei. 66 r if those his two treatises, now among us, the one converted by Apuleius, the other by that learned Ficinus, had been found in all things like themselves, I think it had not been perilous to have thought with Eupolemus, that this Hermes was Moses himself; and that the Egyptian theology hereafter written, was devised by the first and more ancient Mercury, which others have thought to have been Joseph the son of Jacob; whom, after the exposition of Pharaoh's dreams, they called Saphanet Phane, which is as much as to say, absconditorum repertor, "a finder out of hidden things." But these are over-venturous opinions; for what this man was, it is known to God. Envy and aged time hath partly defaced and partly worn out the certain knowledge of him; of whom, whosoever he were, Lactantius writeth in this sort: s Hic scripsit libros, et quidem multos, ad cognitionem divinarum rerum pertinentes, in quibus majestatem summi ac singularis Dei asserit, iisdemque nominibus appellat, quibus nos Deum et Patrem; "He "hath written many books belonging to, or expressing the knowledge of divine things, in which he affirmeth the majesty of the most high and one God, calling him by the 66 same names of God and Father as we do." The same father also feareth not to number him among the sibyls and prophets. And so contrary are these his acknowledgments to those idolatrous fictions of the Egyptians and Grecians, that for myself I am persuaded, that whatsoever is found in him contrary thereunto was by corruption inserted. For thus much himself confesseth: Deus omnium Dominus et Pater, fons et vita, potentia et lux, et mens, et spiritus; et omnia in ipso, et sub ipso sunt. Verbum enim ex ejus esse prodiens, perfectissimum existens, et generator et opifex, &c. " God," saith he, "the Lord and Father of all things, "the fountain, and life, and power, and light, and mind, "and spirit; and all things are in him and under him. For "his word out of himself proceeding, being most perfect, " and generative, and operative, falling upon fruitful nature, "made it also fruitful and producing." And he was there 66 66 |