IV. cording to some editions, make it above 1072 years between CHA P. the flood and Abraham's birth, than to take away any part of those 352 years given. For if we advisedly consider the state and countenance of the world, such as it was in Abraham's time, yea before Abraham was born, we shall find that it were very ill done of us, by following opinion without the guide of reason, to pare the time over deeply between Abraham and the flood; because in cutting them too near the quick, the reputation of the whole story might perchance bleed thereby, were not the testimony of the Scriptures supreme, so as no objection can approach it; and that we did not follow withal this precept of St. Austin, that wheresoever any one place in the Scriptures may be conceived disagreeing to the whole, the same is by ignorance of misinterpretation understood. For in Abraham's time all the then known parts of the world were peopled; all regions and countries had their kings. Egypt had many magnificent cities, and so had Palestine and all bordering countries; yea all that part of the world besides, as far as India: and those not built with sticks, but of hewn stones, and defended with walls and rampiers; which magnificence needed a parent of more antiquity than those other men have supposed. And therefore where the Scriptures are plainest, and best agreeing with reason and nature, to what end should we labour to beget doubts and scruples, or draw all things into wonders and marvels? giving also strength thereby to common cavillers, and to those men's apish brains, who only bend their wits to find impossibilities and monsters in the story of the world and mankind. Thus far that excellent historian, whose words deserve consideration. Thus much for the first objection. The second is, From the great pretence of several nations that they were self-originated, or came not from any other place. This was the pretence of the Egyptians, Grecians, ancient inhabitants of Italy, and others. But how little reason we have to give credit to these pretences, will appear on these accounts. 1. The impossibility in nature that mankind should be produced in such a way as they imagined; which we have manifested already in our discourse of the origin of the universe. 2. That the nations which pretended this, were never able to give sufficient evidence of it to any other nation which demanded it; which is manifest by their want of any certain records of their ancient times; which is fully proved in our discourse in the first book of the want of credibility in the Heathen histories. 3. The only probable reason which induced X. 2. BOOK these nations to make themselves Aborigines, was, because III. they supposed themselves to be the first inhabitants of the countries they lived in; which although I may allow to the Egyptians, and some other ancient nations, yet I cannot do it to the Hellens or Greeks, who most vainly. and arrogantly pretend to it. Which because it may give more light into the greatest antiquities of Greece, and some other nations, than hath been yet discovered or taken notice of; and because it may further tend to clear the truth of the Scriptures as to the origin of nations, I shall more particularly enquire into the first plantation of Greece. That it was first inhabited by some of Noah's posterity, is out of question with all those who prefer the most ancient and undoubted records of Scripture before the fabulous impostures of men's brains. But by whose immediate posterity the country of Greece was first inhabited, is not yet so clear as it hath been generally presumed to be, by most who had rather follow the dictates of others, than spend time in such enquiries themselves; which yet certainly are so far from being unworthy men's labour and industry, that nothing tends more clearly to advance the truth of Scripture-history, than the reconciling the antiquities of the elder nations to what we find delivered of the plantation of the world from the posterity of Noah. As to this particular, therefore, of the first plantation of Greece, I shall first propound the opinion generally embraced among learned men, and then shew how far it is defective, and what other more true account may be given of it. It is evident from Moses, Gen. x. 5. that the posterity of Japhet took possession of the Isles of the Gentiles, i. e. according to the Hebrew idiom, not only such as are properly so called, but all those countries which lay much upon the sea, being at any distance from Palestine, especially such as lay between the ocean and Mediterranean sea; and so both Greece and Italy come under the name of the Isles of the Gentiles. Among the sons of Japhet, none is conceived so probable to have. first peopled Greece, as he whose name was preserved among the inhabitants of Greece, with very little alteration; and so as the Medes from Madai, the Assyrians from Assur, the Thracians from Thiras, by the like analogy the Ionians from Javan. From which it is observable, that although among the Greeks themselves the Ionians were but as one division of that people which inhabited Greece, yet other nations comprehended all under the name of Ionians. For which we have sufficient evidence from Hesychius, and the Scholiast on Aristo- CHAP. phanes. Οἱ βάρβαροι τοὺς Ἕλληνας Ἴωνας λέγεσιν, saith He- IV. sychius; and more to this purpose the Scholiast speaks. Hesych. v. Πάντας τὰς Ἕλληνας Ἰάονας οἱ βάρβαροι ἐκάλεν. For Ἰάονες, Ιανν. with the insertion of the Æolic digamma, (which is always Schol. in done when two vowels meet,) is 'Iάpoves, i. e. Javones; Aristoph. and Stephanus Byzantius tells us, that from 'Iάwv comes Stephanus 'Iv, and so Homer, Ἔνθα δὲ Βοιωτοί, καὶ Ἰάονες ἑλκεχίτωνες. And Dionysius Periegetes reckons up 'láwv as one of the rivers of Arcadia, Ἔνθα μέλας, ὅθι Κράθις, ἵνα ῥέει ὕγρος Ἰάων. Acharnen. de Urb. v. Ιών. Iliad.. v. 685. Dionys. v. 416. And which much confirms this opinion, the Hebrew word Ed. Oxon. for Javan, before the points added by the Masorites, viz. bears a perfect analogy with the Greek 'I; and in Scripture is taken for Greece; and so Dan. viii. 21. Alexander is called, which the LXX. render Barλus Exλv; and Joel iii. 6. You have sold my sons to the sons of Javan, i. e. to the Greeks, as it is generally understood. But as Javan cannot be supposed to have come into these parts without his family, so it is generally presumed that there are no obscure footsteps left of Javan's eldest son, Elisha's seating himself in Greece. For from him Josephus derives the name Alwλeis, with whom the Jerusalem paraphrast concurs. Montanus from Ar. Mont. thence derives the name Elis; from whence he supposeth Phaleg. the Greeks are called "Exanves. Bochartus finds the clear- P. 24. est remainders of Elisha in Elis, the same with Peloponnesus, one part of which by Homer is called Alisium; thence Ezek. xxvii. 7. we read of the purple and scarlet from the isles of Elisha, which makes it most probable to be that part of Greece which lay upon the Ionian sea, where the best purple next to the Tyrian was found, as the learned Bochartus hath demonstrated from several Bochart. authors. This is now the substance of the generally re- Phaleg. ceived account concerning the plantation of Greece from l. iii. c. 19. the posterity of Noah; which if it be taken as to that people which did at length possess Greece, I see no reason to disapprove it; but, if it be extended to the first plantation of Greece, I see as little to embrace it. That we may therefore judge more freely of the first inhabitants of Greece, it is requisite we take an account of it from those who profess themselves most versed in their own antiquities, who may in a matter of this nature, HI. BOOK which is attested by the common consent of the most learned antiquaries of Greece, be the more credited, in that what they thus deliver may be supposed to come from an ancient and undoubted tradition. XI. It is evident therefore, from the judgment of the most learned and judicious even of the Greeks themselves, that Greece was first inhabited by a people by them called barbarous, i. e. a people different from them in language and manners. So Ephorus, whom Polybius commends as the best writer of the Greek antiquities, saith that Greece was inhabited by a barbarous people before the Hellens came into it. And Hecatæus Milesius, cited by Strabo concerning Peloponnesus, ὅτι πρὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ᾤκησαν αὐτὴν Bagapo, which Strabo himself not only believes of Peloponnesus, but of all Greece, that it was xaroxía Baρbágur V. Schol. To náλasov, anciently a plantation of barbarians. The same in Apollon. is affirmed by Aristotle, writing of the commonwealth of 1.iv. v. 262. the Tegeates concerning Arcadia, that before its being Strabo, 1. vii. p.222. possessed by the Arcadians it was inhabited by a barbarous people, who, because they were expulsed their country before moon-rising, the Arcadians called themselves @poréλnvoi. Whether that be the ground of that vain-glorious boast, (of which many reasons are given by learned men,) I here dispute not; it is sufficient that we find the Grecians were not the first who peopled any of these several places; which is likewise attested by Herodotus, Thucydides, and others, whose testimonies we shall afterwards produce. It being then evident that the Grecians were not the first who inhabited that country after from them called Greece, it follows to be enquired what this barbarous people was, and from whence they came. Strabo hath given us in a large catalogue of the names of many of them; as the Dryopes, Caucones, Leleges, besides the Aones, Tembices, Hyantes, and many others; but these seem not to have been that ancient people, but rather some latter castlings of the Carians, who, as Thucydides tells us, did very often make inroads upon the quarters of Greece. That people which had the largest spread, and greatest antiquity, was the Pelasgi: thence Peloponnesus was anciently called Пeλaryía; Stephanus Byzantius Πελοποννήσε τρεῖς ἐπωνυμίαι, ̓Απία, ΠεAaoyia, and "Apyos; and Apollodorus saith, that the Peloponnesians were anciently called Pelasgi; and Euripides, Πελασγιώτας ὠνομασμένες τὸ πρὶν And elsewhere, CHAP. IV. Πρῶτον Πελασγοί, Δαναΐδαι τὸ δεύτερον. saub. These Pelasgi were not only in Peloponnesus, but in Attica too, as appears by Strabo, where he saith the nation. of the Pelasgi did inhabit; and by the Athenians (that is after their mixture) they were called sλapyol, Storks, did Strabo, l. Thν λámy, for their frequent removals from place to ix. p. 273place and Pausanias mentions their being under the Ed. CaAcronoli at Athens: that they were in Thessaly, is evident from Hesychius. Πελασγοί, οἱ Θεσσαλοί· καὶ ἔνιοι τῶν βαρβάρων, καὶ γένος ἀπὸ Πελασγοῦ τοῦ ̓Αρκάδος γενόμενον πολυλάTOV. Arcadia seems to have been the first or chief place of their residence; for the Arcadians, who were accounted παλαιότατα ἔθνη τῶν ἑλλήνων, do vindicate the founder of this nation, whom they call Pelasgus, to themselves, and say he was an auróxwv among them, that is, the first who came into that country; for all those, whose original they knew not, they called Terræ Filios, and Genuinos Terræ. Pausanias rightly conjectures that he was the first man Pausan. in among them, not as though he was alone, but because Arcad. the chief ruler and commander among them, and that brought them into the country; but though they might Strabo, fix themselves about Arcadia, it is evident they spread. xiii. p. further, for Menecrates Eleates, in his book of the founders of cities, affirms, that all the sea-coasts of Greece called Ionica, beginning from Mycale, were first inhabited by the Pelasgi: nay, we find them yet much higher in Idem, 1. vii. Epirus, who were, as Strabo tells us, the first founders of p. 226. the famous oracle of Dodona; for so Ephorus in him saith it was Πελασγῶν ἵδρυμα, and that these were τῶν περὶ τὴν ἑλλάδα δυναστευόντων ἀρχαιότατοι : thence the poet, Ζεῦ ἄνα, Δωδωναῖς, Πελασγικέ. And Hesiod, Δωδώνην φηγόν τε Πελασγῶν ἕδρανον ἦεν. 427. Iliad. '. v. 233. Hesiod. Fragment. Strabo further makes it evident that they were a bar- Ed. Oxon. barous people, which lived about Dodona, from the description Homer gives of them, ἀμφὶ δὲ Σελλοὶ Σοὶ ναίεσ ̓ ὑποφῆται, ἀνιπτόποδες, χαμαιεῦναι. Iliad. '. v. 234. Which Philostratus best interprets, when he saith they Philostr. in were αὐτοσχέδιοι τινες καὶ ἔτε κατεσκευασμένοι τὸν βίον, such Imag. that thought the Gods were best pleased with their simpli |