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The Philosophical Origins of Pagan Theology
Chapter 1. That Pagan Theology was Philosophical, and primarily sought an astronomical and physical understanding of the world system; and that the twelve Gods of the major Nations are the seven Planets together with the four elements and the quintessence Earth.

The ancients developed two philosophies, a sacred philosophy and a common philosophy. Philosophers taught the sacred philosophy to their disciples by types and enigmas; orators committed the common philosophy to writing openly and in a popular style. Sacred philosophy flourished especially in Egypt, and was based on a knowledge of the stars. This is evident from the annual procession of the priests instituted in honour of this Philosophy. Clement of Alexandria described the pattern of this procession, which he had seen with his own eyes[Editorial Note 1], as follows.

The Egyptians practise a philosophy all their own; their sacred procession shows this clearly.

The singer comes first, carrying one of the symbols of music. They say that he should learn two of the books of Mercury, one of which contains the Hymns of the Gods, the other the rules of the Royal life.

After the singer comes the Caster of Horoscopes, holding in his hand a timepiece and a palm, Symbols of Astrology. He must have the astrological books of Mercury on the tip of his tongue. There are four such books, one of which is about the order of the Stars that appear as Fixed, another about the conjunction and luminosity of the Sun and the Moon, while the remaining two are about the rising of the stars.

Then follows the scribe of the sacred things, with plumes on his head, and in his hands a book and a ruler[Editorial Note 2], in which there is both ink for writing and a reed with which they write. (10 books pertain to him.) He has to know the so-called Hieroglyphs, 2 Cosmography and 3 Geography, 4 the order of the Sun and Moon and of 5 the Five Planets, 6 the Chorography of Egypt and 7 the Description of the Nile, as well as 8 the organisation of the apparatus for the sacred rites and of the consecrated places.

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‡ From the beginning of the world to the flood Berosus[Editorial Note 3] counts 120 sari, and says that a Sarus is 300 years[Editorial Note 4]. I suspect that years has been written here instead of days because of uncertainty about the word. For in their mysteries the Eastern peoples used day for year, and the old Chaldean year consisted of 360 days. On this assumption a sarus will be ten years, and the length of time from the beginning of the world to the flood will be 1200 years, much as Moses wrote. The Gentiles (Gentes) counted by ten, one hundred and a thousand, not by 36, 360, 3600. And I cannot really understand where the number 3600, which is not a round number comes from, if it is not from the conversion of a ten year period into days.

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The aforesaid persons are followed by the Keeper of the Vestments[Editorial Note 5], who holds the cubit of Justice and a Cup for making libations. He knows everything that belongs to Education and to the Marking of Victims. And there are 10 (books) which pertain to the worship of their Gods and contain the Egyptian Religion. They are 1 on Sacrifices, 2 on First-offerings, 3 on Hymns, 4 on Prayers, 5 on Processions, 6 on Festival Days and four others.

After all of these comes the Prophet, visibly wearing the Urn on his breast; he is followed by those who carry the Loaves of Offering[Editorial Note 6]. As Prefect of the Sacred Things, this man has a thorough knowledge of the ten books which are called Sacerdotal, namely: on the Laws, on the Gods, and on the general instruction of the Priests. The Prophet is also in charge of the assessment of Taxes among the Egyptians. Thus far Clement.

< insertion from f 1v > ✝Now the whole of this Procession is about Astronomy and Geography. For the prefatorial hymns signify the harmony of the spheres, which the ancients symbolised by the nine Muses and Apollo 'Leader of the Muses'[Editorial Note 7] with his Lyre, and which they were wont to adumbrate in their rites by hymns. This is how Macrobius[Editorial Note 8] makes this clear. When Plato, he says, was discussing the whirling motion of the celestial spheres in his Republic[Editorial Note 9], he said that a Siren is seated on each of the orbs, which indicates that by the motion of the spheres singing is produced by the deities. For Siren means singing Goddess in the Greek understanding. The theologians too interpreted it to mean that the nine Muses are the eight musical songs of the spheres and the one great harmony resulting from them all. This is why Hesiod in his Theogony calls Urania the eighth muse, because beyond the seven wandering stars which lie below, the eighth sphere, situated above, which carries the stars, is properly called the sky; and in order to show that the ninth is also the greatest as the one which results from the harmonious whole of sounds, he added,

'and Kalliope who is preeminent among them all'[Editorial Note 10]

Thus Hesiod shows by the name that it is sweetness of voice that is called the ninth Muse (for the Greek καλλιόπη means 'of the best voice'). And in order to indicate more strikingly that she is the product of them all, he applied to her a word that implies the whole, namely the one 'who is preeminent among them all'[Editorial Note 11]. They also call Apollo 'Leader of the Muses' as the leader and prince of the other orbits, as Cicero himself says of him: Leader and prince and governor of the other lights, the intelligence and ordering principle of the world.[Editorial Note 12] Those who called the Muses Camenae, as if it were canenae from canendo,[Editorial Note 13] also know that the Muses are the song of the world. Similarly Theologians introduced musical sounds into sacrifices, in acknowledgement that heaven sings; some peoples made music with the lyre or the cithara, others with flutes or other musical instruments. And in the actual hymns to the Gods metres were applied to tuneful verses in a pattern of strophe and antistrophe, so that the true motion of the star-bearing orbit might be proclaimed by the strophe, and the various regresses of the wandering stars by the antistrophe. From these two motions the first hymn in nature to be dedicated to God took its origin. The customs of many nations or countries also ordained that it was fitting to escort the dead to burial with singing, because of this conviction that souls are believed after the body to return to the source of musical sweetness. So Macrobius, Dream of Scipio, bk. 2, ch. 3. It is evident from the order of the procession that the same is signified by the hymns in the Egyptians' procession. For immediately after the hymns the Astronomer proceeds with the sacred books, etc. < text from f 2r resumes > NB. Cicero says that the outermost sphere in which the fixed stars are situated, is the supreme God himself holding and containing the other spheres. See The Dream of Scipio, {cited} in Macro{bi}us, Dream of Scipio, bk. 1, ch. 17[Editorial Note 14]. In this procession the a[1] harmony of the celestial spheres is signified by prefatory Hymns. Then proceeds the Astronomer with the sacred books concerning the knowledge of the stars. He is followed by the scribe of the sacred things who understands the patterns of the Sky ... the Earth, the Stars, and the sacred things. Finally the Priest and the Prefect of the Sacred Things, expert in everything involved in the sacred rites and theology, close the whole Procession. By combining the Science of the Stars and the World with Theology and putting that Science in the first place, the Egyptians were asserting that their Theology concerns the stars. And indeed the Gods of the Egyptians were the stars and the elements. This is asserted by both Diodorus[Editorial Note 15] and ✝ Laertius[Editorial Note 16]. Horus Apollo[Editorial Note 17] also testifies that ✝ for the Egyptians an image of a Star signifies God. Chaeremon too <3r> and others (as Porphyry reports in Eusebius) [2] [Editorial Note 18] insisted that no Gods are superior to this corporeal world and its parts; they base themselves on the teaching of certain Egyptians, who never spoke of any other Gods but the Planets and the fixed Stars, but invariably interpreted all their theological stories as being about the stars and the Planets and the river Nile, and they believed that human affairs depend upon the influences of these. Hence Eusebius concludes that the secret Theology of the Egyptians was solely concerned with the stars and Planets as Gods. ✝ < insertion from f 2v > Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 1, ch. 6 And elsewhere[Editorial Note 19] he says: it is widely reported that the Phoenicians and the Egyptians were the first of all men to attribute divinity to the Sun and the Moon and the Stars, and assigned to them alone the cause of the birth and perishing of all things. And later[Editorial Note 20]: Already you may find in the Theology of the Phoenicians, who were the first among them to dedicate themselves to the study of natural philosophy equally with the Egyptians, that the only things they regarded as Gods were the sun and the Moon and the other wandering stars, together with the elements and the things associated with them. — And these things are contained also in the books of the Phoenicians. So too the Author of the Book of Wisdom ch. 13[Editorial Note 21] says: They supposed that fire or wind or rushing air or the circle of the stars or flooding water or the sun and the moon were Gods, the rulers of the earth. And when Job was attempting to clear himself of Idolatry, he said: If I saw the sun when it was shining and the Moon moving brightly, and my heart rejoiced in secret and I kissed my hand with my mouth, this too is iniquity to be punished by the judges since I denied the most high God. Job. 31.26. < text from f 3r resumes > The same is also evident from the names of the Gods, i.e., Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Sol, Apollo, Luna, Diana, Vulcan, Neptune, Rhea, Pluto, Ceres, Liber, Ocean and such like. These Gods clearly signify the stars and the elements, and in antiquity they were disseminated throughout the world from Egypt. As Herodotus[Editorial Note 22] says: Almost all the names of the gods have come to Greece from Egypt. I know that this is so, because I inquired about it from foreign peoples,[Editorial Note 23] and I think that they came in particular from Egypt. And a little before: They say that the Egyptians were the first to use of the names of the twelve Gods, and that the Greeks borrowed them from them; they too were the first to set up images and Shrines for the Gods. The same thing Lucian in etc. < insertion from f 2v > Lucian confirms the same thing in his Dialogues on the basis of his survey of Temples in Syria and information from the priests. I write, he says, as an Assyrian myself and of the things which I tell, some I saw myself and others I was taught by the priests. The Egyptians are said to have been the first men we know of to obtain a knowledge of the gods and to set up temples and sacred groves and to establish holy festivals. They were the first who knew the sacred names, and taught the sacred stories. And then not much later the Assyrians took their doctrine about the gods from the Egyptians and erected holy temples in which they placed images and dedicated statues. Of old even among the Egyptians the temples were without paintings and statues. In Syria too there are temples which are not much later than those in Egypt, and I myself saw a great many of them. This is what Lucian says in The Syrian Goddess[Editorial Note 24]. Worship of the stars therefore is older than images. What he writes about the Assyrians having been taught by the Egyptians is also confirmed by Diodorus book 1: Belus, he says, who is believed to be the son of Neptune and Libya, led a colony to Babylon and after finding a site on the Euphrates, he appointed priests in the Egyptian manner who were exempt from taxes and public services, and the Babylonians call them Chaldaeans. These men observe the stars, following the example of the priests and Physicists and Astrologers in Egypt. In his On Astrology Lucian describes the origin and progress of sacred Philosophy more fully as follows. The Ethiopians, he says[Editorial Note 25], first discovered the motions and properties of the wandering stars and taught Astrology to mortals, and soon they taught the imperfect art to their neighbours, the Egyptians, who greatly improved it. — The Babylonians too were skilled in all of this, and indeed they affirm that they were the very first. But I think that the science came to them much later. The Greeks however did not learn anything about Astrology either from the Ethiopians or the Egyptians; it was Orpheus the son of Oeagrus and Calliope who first revealed it to them. Thus Lucian. But Diodorus, loc. cit. and Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 1, ch. 6, provide abundant evidence that Orpheus had learned the science of the stars in Egypt and brought the mysteries of the Egyptians with him to communicate them to the Greeks. Herodotus also in Euterpe[Editorial Note 26], Plato in his <3v> Epinomis[Editorial Note 27], Aristotle, On the Heavens, bk. 2, ch.12, Macrobius[Editorial Note 28], bk. 1, ch. 19, and others say that Astronomy came to the Greeks from the Egyptians. And the Ethiopians, whom Lucian says were the first to discover the motions and properties of the stars and later taught them to their Egyptian neighbours, were inhabitants of Upper Egypt, which is called Thebais. For Marsham (in his Canon Chronicus)[Editorial Note 29] proves from Eustathius, Homer and Philostratus that Thebais was called Ethiopia in the ancient histories. But sacred philosophy seems to have flourished from the beginning also in the Ethiopia which is coterminous with Thebais on the south, and which beginning at Phylae and lying on both banks of the Nile, extends for a great distance along it like Egypt itself, and is similarly irrigated by its waters, and its principal city and royal palace, situated on the island of Meroe, is not far from Thebes. For those Ethiopians were isolated, exactly like the Egyptians, and used the same laws, both sacred and political, as Diodorus notes, and if I am not mistaken, sprang from the Egyptians, since Osiris led a colony there at the time when he is related to have left for Ethiopia. Diodorus writes that the common language of these Ethiopians was the same as the sacred language of the Egyptians, and from this he concludes that the Egyptians were taught their sacred things by these Ethiopians. But I suspect that this sacred language in the beginning was the common language of both Egyptians and Ethiopians, but had fallen out of use in Egypt before the time of Diodorus, because of the invasions of the Babylonians, Persians and Greeks, except in so far as it was preserved in sacred and historical books; exactly as we see has happened to the learned languages, both the eastern languages and Greek and Latin. < text from f 3r resumes >

The Planets and the Elements which are signified by the names of Gods were enumerated by the Egyptians in this order: a Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Sun, Moon, Fire, Air, Water, Earth (Terra). The Earth (Tellus) which is represented/produced/foreshadowed by the four Elements is the Fifth essence[Editorial Note 30] and completes the number twelve. <4r> The whole of Philosophy is comprehended in these twelve, provided that the stars indicate Astronomy, and the four Elements the rest of Physiology[Editorial Note 31]. They were taken as Gods because all human things were believed to be ruled by them. For Philastrius of Brescia[Editorial Note 32] asserts that Hermes ordained that the generation of men depends upon the seven stars. And Clement of Alexandria says that the Egyptians were the first to introduce astrology among men; similarly also the Chaldeans. And Herodotus says[Editorial Note 33] that it was the Egyptians who worked out which month or day belonged to each of the Gods, and what fate lies in store for anyone born on a particular day, and how he will die, and what kind of man he will be. By the Egyptian gods here Herodotus means the Planets. For the days of the gods are the seven days of the week, which are named after the 7 Planets. In the horoscopic art of the Egyptians the Planets presided over the days as a kind of Gods. Hence Dio Cassius: As for the fact that the Days are assigned to the seven stars which are called Planets, that was certainly an invention of the Egyptians. And just as seven days are assigned to the seven Planets, so also the final words of Herodotus show that the year was divided among the twelve Gods by the same number of months. ✝ < insertion from f 3v > ✝ And there is the same rationale for the signs of the Zodiac to which the months correspond. For to the early Egyptians the signs of the Zodiac were the Dei Consentes (the Twelve Major Gods)[Editorial Note 34], and the Planets were regarded as the Guardsmen[Editorial Note 35], who stand on guard as attendants at the court of the Sun, the evidence being an ancient Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, bk. 4. < text from f 4r resumes > So too the Chaldaeans (as Diodorus bk. 2 asserts) accepted twelve Principal Gods and assigned one month and one of the twelve signs of the Zodiac to each of them.

The Latins too retained the same number of Gods, and called them the Dei Consentes, as if Jupiter could do nothing without their consent. They were also called the select Gods and the major Gods and the ever-celestial Gods, while others, who for their deserts had been elevated to heaven from men, were called demi-gods, <5r> Indigetes, Semones[Editorial Note 36], Lesser Gods, and minor Gods. Ennius surveys the Dei Consentes in this couplet.

Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,         Mercurius, Iovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo[Editorial Note 37]. But Plato excludes Vesta from the company of the twelve Gods. Plato says, Jupiter, the mighty Leader in the heavens, goes ahead driving his swift chariot, governing and arranging all things. He is followed by the host of Gods and Deities marshalled in eleven companies. For Vesta stays behind, alone in the house of the Gods[Editorial Note 38]. Herodotus too is testimony that she was unknown to the Egyptians, though he also writes that the names of the twelve Gods had been discovered by them. Now Vulcan was undoubtedly Hermaphroditus among the Egyptians (as Horus Apollo[Editorial Note 39] tells us), and therefore Europeans sometimes make him a male god with the name Hephaistos and sometimes a female with the name Vesta; but the Egyptians were unaware that the Goddess of fire was different from Vulcan. Therefore Vesta should be assimilated to Vulcan, and Saturn should be brought in to Ennius's list to complete the number twelve. For Manetho (in Eusebius) includes Saturn among the first Egyptian gods. Thus we shall find all the Egyptian gods in the couplet of Ennius, namely the Seven Planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Apollo, Diana), the four Elements (Vulcan, Minerva, Neptune, Ceres), and the Globe of the Earth, Juno. Juno is associated by some people with the air and thus will be the same as Minerva. For Minerva is air to the Egyptians on the testimony of Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 3, ch. 2. There Eusebius explains that for them Osiris is the Sun, Isis the Moon, Jupiter the Breath that pervades all things, Vulcan fire, and Ocean is water and the Nile, and then he adds these words: τὸν δὲ Ἀέρα φασὶν ἀυτους <6r> προσαγορέυειν Αθηναν[Editorial Note 40]: But they say that they address the Air as Minerva. So too Diodorus[Editorial Note 41]: Furthermore [the Egyptians] give the name of Minerva to the Air and they think that she is the daughter of Jupiter and a Virgin because air is not by nature subject to corruption and occupies the highest position in the whole universe. Similarly the Venerable Augustine: If they say that Minerva occupies the higher part of the aether, and because of this, Poets imagine that she sprang from the head of Zeus, why, then, is she not rather reckoned to be queen of the Gods, because she is superior to Jupiter? [3] It remains therefore that Juno is Earth. For is she not associated with the Moon only when Jupiter is taken as the Sun? And the Moon here is signified by Diana. But whether Jupiter signifies the Sun or his own Planet, he is consistently associated with the Sky, and by ancient tradition the wife of the Sky is the Earth. Hence for the Athenians Sky and Earth were the Gods of marriage. So Proclus says in his Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato, 5: And weddings seem to belong to Sky and Earth, because it is possible to see in them an image of this Sky and Earth. In recognition of this, the Laws of Athens laid it down that before a wedding, sacrifice should be made to the Sky and to the Earth. The Venerable[4] Augustine tells us, on the authority of the books of Virgil and the Philosophers, that Juno is taken for earth. What is improper in asserting that Jupiter and Juno were children of time if he is sky and she is earth, since undoubtedly Sky and earth have been created. For their learned and wise men also say this in their books. For Virgil was not basing himself on poetic fancies but on the books of Philosophers when he said

Then the father omnipotent, the aether, with fruitful showers

descends into the lap of his happy spouse,

i.e, into the lap of the land or Earth[Editorial Note 42]. So Virgil. Varro too, On the Latin Language bk. 3, says that Juno is <7r> Earth and Land. Plutarch too (reported in Eusebius, Preparation {on the truth of the Gos}pel[Editorial Note 43] interprets Juno as earth and the nuptial union of man and wom{an}. Servius says that Jupiter is put for aether and air, Juno for earth and water. And Horus Apollo[Editorial Note 44] says that among the Egyptians Minerva occupies the higher hemisphere of the Sky and Juno the lower.

Since Saturn was omitted[Editorial Note 45] by Ennius, and the same God of nature was worshipped very often in different places under different names, it finally came about that the Latins added to the twelve Ennian Gods eight others — Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Pluto, Liber, Janus and Genius, and that thus they made up twenty select Gods altogether. But the Sun is the same as with Apollo, the Moon as Mars, and Janus, as some argue, is the same as the Sun, or rather as the two-faced Saturn of the Egyptians. There remains only Genius, whom Roman superstition seems to have added to the select ones, and which is no more than the guardian spirit of a person, city or region. The Latins therefore worshipped twelve Principal Gods and no more, except for the spurious God Genius and Vesta, a Goddess who is excluded from the heaven of the others and is feigned to remain alone in the House of the Gods, so as not to upset the number of twelve. And just as the Egyptians and the Chaldaeans distributed the months of the Year among these Gods, so too the Latins seem to have done in the beginning. Ovid says that before the times of Numa Pompilius,

the first month belonged to Mars, the second to Venus[Editorial Note 46], namely April, from ἀφρὸς[Editorial Note 47], Foam, hence Ἀφροδίτη, Venus. Diodorus wrote that the month of May was sacred to Mercury, son of Maia. June perhaps was so-called from Juno. So too the names of Gods were given to the Months of the Greeks and of other Peoples, for example, the names Hermaeus, Panemus, Damatrius, were given to the Months of the Macedonians, and to the Months of the Syrians, Thammuz and Canus or Canaan.

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Chapter 2
That the memory of the leading Men after the Flood was venerated in the stars and in the Elements, and that men in the first three ages and in the fourth ... but now the names of the celestial Gods are derived from men[Editorial Note 48]. For

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Plutarch too (reported in Eusebius, Preparation of the Gospel) interprets Juno as earth and the nuptial union of man and woman. Servius says that Jupiter is put for aether and air, Juno for earth and water. And Horus Apollo says that among the Egyptians Minerva occupies the higher hemisphere of the Sky, and Juno the lower.

Since[Editorial Note 49] Ennius had omitted Saturn, and the same natural God was very often worshipped under different Names in different places, [For[Editorial Note 50] when the lette{r}s ט and צ are exchanged with each other, Phut, פוט, becomes פוצ, dispersed ✝Geogr,] it finally came about that the Latins added to the twelve Ennian Gods eight others – Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Pluto, Liber, Janus and Genius, and that thus they made up twenty select Gods altogether. But the Sun is the same as Apollo, the Moon as Mars, and Janus, as some argue, is the same as the Sun, or rather as the double-faced Saturn of the Egyptians. There remains only Genius, whom Roman superstition seems to have added to the select ones, and which is no more than the guardian-spirit of a person, city or region. The Latins therefore worshipped twelve Principal Gods and no more, except for the spurious God, Genius, and Vesta, a Goddess who is excluded from the hea{ven} of the others, and is feigned to remain alone in the House of the Gods, so as not to upset the number of twelve. That Typho lies inside Mt. Etna[Editorial Note 51] and vomits out fire, or sends up[Editorial Note 52] noxious vapours in some Egyptian lake, are clearly poetic fictions.[Editorial Note 53] From פוצ comes נפוצ and נפצ or נפט, Naphat, was dispersed, and נפטו, Naphtu, were dispersed. Whence Nephtys, the wife of Typho, had returned And Neptune of the Latins. And just as [understand Jupiter of the Chaldaeans][Editorial Note 54] the Egyptians and the Chaldaeans distributed the months of the Year among these Gods, so too the Latins seem to have done in the beginning. Ovid says that before the times of Numa Pompilius.

The first Month belonged to Mars, and the second to Venus[Editorial Note 55], i.e., April from αφρὸς[Editorial Note 56], foam, hence Αφρδίτα[Editorial Note 57], Venus. But who does not see that snakes and serpents relate to Africa? Diodorus wrote that the month[Editorial Note 58] of May was Sacred to Mercury, son of Maia. June {perhaps} was so-called {from} Juno. So too the names of gods were given to {some of} the Months of the Greeks and of other Nations: for instance, to the months Dius, Artemisius and Panemus of the Thebans, and to the months Thammuz and Canus or Canaan of the Syrians, <11r> and to the Months Thoth, Athyr and Mesori of the Egyptians. Hence it is likely that originally all the Months among the various peoples took their names from the twelve Gods. For the Year was fashioned by Astronomers, and therefore astronomical names were given to its divisions from the beginning.

But the names of the Gods were derived from men. For just as Galileo named the Stars around Jupiter 'Medicean' in honour and remembrance of his benefactors, and others have given the names of Celebrated men to the Moon, so the Ancients imposed the Names of their Ancestors on their Cities, peoples, mountains, rivers, Countries, elements, Constellations and Planets. Thus the Stars of Sun and Moon were given the names of some Egyptian Youths, Orus and Bubastis, or Apollo and Diana; the Star, Mercury, was given the name of a man called Thoth, from whom the Egyptians received the sciences; Venus was given the name of some libidinous woman; Mars was given the name of an outstanding Warrior; Fire was given the name of a Craftsman called Vulcan; the five Stars of the Hyades and the seven stars of the Pleiades were given the names of the twelve daughters of Atlas, who were Phaesyla, Ambrosia, Coronis, Eudora and Polyxo, plus Electra, Alcyone, Celeno, Merope, Sterope, Taygeta and Maia. And so for the rest. The most ancient of the foreign peoples, Philo of Byblos[Editorial Note 59] says, in particular the Phoenicians and the Egyptians, from whom other peoples subsequently received this custom, regarded as the greatest Gods all those men who had discovered things that were necessary for living, and who had generously conferred some benefit on the human race. The outstanding instance of this is that they applied the names of their kings to the elements of this world and to certain of those things which they regarded as Gods. And they recognized none but the Gods of nature, the Sun, the Moon and the other wandering stars, together with the elements and other things that are associated by affinity with them, so that they had some Gods who were mortal and others who were immortal. Thus Philo from Sanchoniatho[Editorial Note 60] in Eusebius, Preparation of the Gospel, bk. 1, ch. 9.

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Bochart has abundantly proved in his Sacred Geography[Editorial Note 61] that Saturn is Noah. The same is also to be understood of Janus, the most ancient God of the Italians. Saturn was the God of time; and in the Orphic writings he is called 'father of all' and 'ruler of created things'[Editorial Note 62] and his wife Rhea is 'Mother of gods and mortal men'.[Editorial Note 63] He was depicted by the Egyptians with eyes before and behind, as if he had seen both before the flood and after. Janus too was God of the year and of time, and in Terentianus Maurus[Editorial Note 64] he is called the Sower of things and the source of the Gods; and he was depicted with two faces. All this can be understood only of Noah, a man long-lived beyond all men, and father of all mortals. [The Egyptians passed down the tradition d that the most ancient of the Gods reigned for a space of one thousand two hundred years and the later ones not less than three hundred years. And such longevity only Noah with his sons and grandsons achieved.] Saturn and Rhea with the other Gods of that time are said by Philosophers and Poets to have sprung from Ocean. That is why the Egyptians also depicted their Gods in a boat on the waters. And a coin was struck in Italy a[5] at one time with the double face of Janus on one side and a ship on the other. These things clearly refer to the flood. As Noah was the first Farmer, planted a vineyard and got drunk, so Saturn was the first to teach agriculture (hence he was equipped with a sickle) and was the patron of drunkenness (hence the Saturnalia). And Janus was also called b[6] Consivius from conserendo and his Name was from vinum, יינ, jain[Editorial Note 65], ὸινοσ Vinum[Editorial Note 66]. Hence too a part of Italy {was called}[Editorial Note 67] Oenotria. Moreover Saturn is said to have forbidden by legislation that anyone should view Gods naked without being punished for it. This relates to the impiety of Cham, who looked upon his naked father. In the Saturnalia the Masters served the slaves. This action seems to be in memory of the curse of Cham, vod, or the slave of slaves. Saturn was King of the whole world, and reigned for the whole of the golden age, which was the first of all ages and by far the happiest. <12v> For in the beginning they sacrificed only green things and the fruits of the {ea}rth to him, as to the source of germination[Editorial Note 68], with this holy fire. And just as Canaan was called Hephaestus from the storeroom fire[Editorial Note 69], so too Busiris could have been so named from the Altars of Busiris.

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Under his rule there was complete peace, and no toil or distress. All things were in common and undivided. He was so very just that under him no one was a slave nor had any private property. Land had not yet been parcelled out with boundaries. All of this was quite true of Noah. And Abydenus,[Editorial Note 70] who composed his history from the records of the Medes and Persians, after describing the construction and the overthrow of the Tower of Babylon and the dispersal of the men, adds: Men[Editorial Note 71]

<13v>

Gods: The white Dove sacred to the Syro-Palestinian (Tibullus bk. 1)[Editorial Note 72]. Also the particular God of the Palestinians was Dagon (Judges 16.23, 1 Samuel 5, 1 Maccabees 10.23, Joshua 15.41). Philo of Byblos[Editorial Note 73] derives him from dagan, corn, but others tell[Editorial Note 74] us on the basis of Jewish traditions that he is half-fish, and therefore derived the name from dag, fish. He is therefore a God of the sea, and therefore he is Canaan, the father of the Phoenicians, who was the first of all men to sail. For Sanchoniatho too makes Dagon a brother of Atlas, and under that name, a son of Cham. For Beel is well known to be a component of the names of the Principal Gods and places, as in the names Beelzebub, Baal-peor, Ball-zephin, Beel-zebub, seed of Beel, Baalhermon, Baalgath, Baalthamar. Tubal-cain, who is commonly regarded as Vulcan, was neither a son of Jupiter and Juno nor husband of Venus, nor did he have any connection with the Egyptians, and therefore he has no relevance to Egyptian Philosophy. If Canaan ever sailed to Egypt, he will also be Canobus, a God of the Egyptians. For Canobus is the helmsman of a Ship (not of the ship that carried Menelaus, as the Greeks falsely claim, but) of the first ship to arrive in Egypt. Hence the mouth of the Nile where the ship put in is called Canobic and the constellation is called Canobo on the 'sphere'[Editorial Note 75] of the Egyptians. These two memorials testify to the extreme antiquity of this God. כנע אוב, Cana-ob, Canobus, i.e. belly of Cana, Cana with swollen belly. As the first men [came to be?][Editorial Note 76] by means of the Centaurs and Venus, and among the Phoenicians through Syrenis, so [for the Egyptians they came] through Canobus as if by his belly; he is pictured with a human head and a huge belly. But I am still investigating how it came about that Canaan was called Busiris. אבוי צר, Abumin Sar, i.e. Alas for Sar, the cry of the people when they were passionately bewailing Osiris. Hence

[Editorial Note 77][They want to derive Chanaan (because of the prophecy of Noah to Chanaan that he would be the slave of slaves)[Editorial Note 78] from כנע, Chana, humble, abject, by adding an Optional[Editorial Note 79] or Inflectional letter. And with the addition of the title of Lord, Beel Cana, Belcana, Vulcanus.]

the holy fire and the altar and the whole place where men were once sacrificed alive to Osiris, are said to belong to Busiris. For Strabo denies that Busiris was a King of Egypt. Who does not know of the altars of the abominated Busiris? Virgil, Georgics, 3[Editorial Note 80]. And Diodorus admits that the name does not belong to any person but to a tomb. They claim, he says, that men — Marsham[Editorial Note 81] p 79 — he had. (as is {Cappit{illeg} Gradasi}[Editorial Note 82], so אש תא, Esta, — fire signifies chamber or guardroom, hence Εστια in Greek; and אפ אש תא, Ef-Es-ta is the fire of Guards keeping watch, hence Εφαιστος[Editorial Note 83] and Vesta. For

<14r>

[continued from the end of 13r: Men] had had one and the same language down to this time, but spoke many conflicting tongues thereafter, and subsequently war broke out between Saturn and the Titans[Editorial Note 84]. When he[Editorial Note 85] had been driven out of his kingdom, we have to suppose that he took refuge somewhere. And a very ancient story is that he subsequently hid in Italy. Hence the name Saturn is from סתר, Satar, to hide. And the name of Italy, Cittim, is from כתים, concealed hiding (as Bochart has explained at length in his Geography, bk. 3, ch. 5). For Cittim the Latins in their own Language say Latium. At the time when Saturn arrived in Italy, they claim that Janus was king, and therefore Janus is either the more ancient King or, more truly, the same King as Saturn. Before Saturn there was no God among you: Tertullian, Apology, ch. 10. Saturn was called Chiun and Chiwan by the Easterners, names which do not much differ from ἰαν; and in the Latin language Ιαν is Janus.

And now it is quite clear that Jupiter is Ham[Editorial Note 86]. Herodotus in Euterpe:[Editorial Note 87] the Egyptians call Jupiter Ἁμμουν. Plutarch in his Isis:[Editorial Note 88] and very many people think that the proper name among the Egyptians for what we call Hammon is Αμουν. Hesychius[Editorial Note 89]: Ἁμμους ὁ Ζεὺς, Ἀρισοτέλει[Editorial Note 90]: Hammus is Zeus according to Aristotle. This is the God of the Syrians, Thamuz, Ezekiel 8.11[Editorial Note 91]. Plato discussing Thoth in his Phaedrus says: At that time Thamus was the king of all Egypt [7] in the great city of the Upper region which the Greeks call Egyptian Thebes, and the God himself they call Hammonitalic[Editorial Note 92]. From him and Noah together came also the name of that city No (Ezekiel 30.14, 15, 16) and No-Amon (Nahum 3.8) and Hamon-No or Amonde No[Editorial Note 93] (Ezekiel 30.15, Jeremiah 46.25). This the Septuagint translates as Diospolis, i.e. the city of Jupiter. Moreover we are reminded that this God was worshipped throughout all the lands granted to Cham, both a[8] by the various places named after him in Africa and Arabia, or by the ancient name b[9] [Editorial Note 94] of the whole of Africa, Ammonia, or by the common God of those Peoples, Hammon. Lucan, bk. 9.

Although there is only one Jupiter Ammon for the peoples of the Ethiopians

and for the wealthy nations of the Arabs and for the Indians[Editorial Note 95].

<15r>

[Editorial Note 96]for the Egyptian months Thoth, Altyr and Mesori. Hence it is likely that all the months took their names in the beginning from the twelve Gods among the various Nations. For the year was fashioned by Astronomers, and for that reason Astronomical names were given to its divisions from the beginning.

But the names of the Gods have been taken from men. For we have seen in recent history how Galileo named the Stars around Jupiter Medicean in honour and remembrance of his benefactors, and others have given the names of Celebrated men to the Moon. In the Constellations too we see the names of certain men are preserved. With the same intention as modern men, the Ancients imposed the Names of their Ancestors on their Cities, regions, elements, and stars. Thus on the Star of Mercury has been imposed the name of the famous Thoth from whom the Egyptians received the sciences. To the Sun and the Moon have been given the names of Orus, Isis and Osiris, Kings of Egypt; to Jupiter the name Hammun, i.e. the name of Ham, the son of Noah. And now it is quite clear that Jupiter is Ham. Herodotus in Euterpe:[Editorial Note 97] the Egyptians call Jupiter Ἁμμουν[Editorial Note 98]. Hesychius[Editorial Note 99]: Ἁμμους ὁ Ζεὺς, Ἀρισοτέλει: Hammus is Zeus according to Aristotle. This is the God of the Syrians, Thamuz, Ezekiel 8.11[Editorial Note 100]. Plato discussing Thoth in his Phaedrus, says: "At that time Thamus was the king of all Egypt in the great city of the Upper region which the Greeks call Egyptian Thebes, and the God himself they call Hammon." From him and Noah together came also the name of that city No (Ezekiel 30.14, 15, 16) and No-Amon (Nahum 3.8) and Hamon-No or Amonde No (Ezekiel 30.15, Jeremiah 46.25). This the Septuagint translates as Diospolis, i.e., the city of Jupiter, and we are reminded that this God was worshipped through all the lands granted to Cham, both b[10] by the various places named after him in Africa and Arabia, and by the ancient name a[11] [Editorial Note 101] of the whole of Africa, Ammonia, and the common God of those Peoples Hammon. Lucan, bk. 9 [Editorial Note 102].

Although there is only one Jupiter Ammon for the peoples of the Ethiopians

and for the wealthy nations of the Arabs and for the Indians.

<15v>

[This seems to follow on from f 13v, For] Eusebius[Editorial Note 103] says that the sons born to Caelum were Saturn, Belulus[Editorial Note 104], Dagon and Atlas. From the list of his sons I infer that Caelum here is the Cham of the Assyrians, for whom Jupiter was Belus, Saturn was Chus, and Caelus[Editorial Note 105] was Cham. Dagon is explained there as Σιτω[Editorial Note 106], i.e., the God of corn, and therefore he was Osiris. This is the God of the Philistines, 1 Sam. 1. He was their brother[Editorial Note 107]. Atlas is Phut. For it is agreed that Atlas too lived in Mauretania, both as much from the fact that his name was given to the mountains of that region and to the Atlantic Ocean, as from the Atlantic peoples whom Diodorus places there. That he too was a strong man, we learn from the fable that he bears the sky on his shoulders. And the name Atlantis, or Hatal Ante, or[Editorial Note 108] ..., i.e., התל Ante, or Atal-Antis, i.e., התל Antis, signifies the false Antis. And Atlas is a contraction for Atlantes. Atlas therefore and Ante or Antaeus, are the same name; and Atlantic sea means the same as if you were to say the sea of the false Antaeus{illeg}. This is how the Egyptians were pleased to speak of him because of his plots against Osiris. And by giving the name of Atlas to the Ocean they signified that he is the God of the Sea; for Suidas tells us that all unsailable seas were called Atlantic by the men of old. Hence Strabo thought that India finished at the Eastern sea and at the southern part of the Atlantic, and elsewhere [Editorial Note 109] he says that its southern and eastern side extends into the Atlantic sea, and in another passage that the Atlantic sea joins up with itself. Zosimus writes that the river Rhine discharges into the Atlantic sea, which is now called the German sea. In the Dream of Scipio[Editorial Note 110] it is said that the whole of the inhabited earth is surrounded by the Atlantic sea which we call Ocean. Julius Firmicus[Editorial Note 111] and the author of the book On the World which is ascribed to Aristotle[Editorial Note 112] say that the whole earth is girt like an island by the Atlantic sea. Herodotus[Editorial Note 113] held that every sea is the Atlantic except for the Caspian, the Red Sea and the sea which the Greeks sail, i.e. the Mediterranean. Therefore the ancients named the whole Ocean after Atlas, and for this reason he is the truest Neptune of the ancients, and on that account the Typho of the Egyptians.

Finally, it is also inferred from their names that he is Phut, and Neptune and Typho. Phut is פוט, and (if the letters צ and ט are changed for each other, Phut becomes פוצ, dispersed) he is scattered, crushed and broken by the dispersion, if the letters פ and צ are changed with each other, as often happens[Editorial Note 114]. Hercules dispersed the Vanquished, and thrust them apart from each other, by situating Typho in the farthest part of the earth, so that he could not renew the war. For

From Phut or Put is also formed the Greek Pytho and, with a reversal of letters, Typho. For the Greeks speak indifferently of Typho and Pytho. By the Egyptians he is called for the most part Seth, sometimes Bebon and Smu, names that, says Plutarch,[Editorial Note 115]. He is also called Seth, from שתח, he drank, he drank with. For he is Warden of the waters, and drowns[Editorial Note 116] his fellow-diners, as in the case of Osiris, and perhaps of the Greek ποσειδων παρα τὸ πόσιν δουναι.[Editorial Note 117]. Hence the fable of Lycaon. And Bebon is signified by a serpent or Dragon [as Bochartus {taught} us in his Geography], and hence, since the Egyptians {illeg} represent the Element of water in the form of serpents, the Greeks fabled that Pytho was a Dragon of enormous size which was killed by Apollo.

[Editorial Note 118] <16r>

Chronologists now maintain that this Men or Menem was the first king of Egypt. a[12] Eratosthenes says, Menes is interpreted as Diony{s}os

But now if Jupiter is Ham, Saturn will be Noah. The ancient God of the Italians, Ianus (from whom comes the month of January) was a[13] God of the year and of time, and is called by Septimius[Editorial Note 122] in Terentianus Maurus the Sower of things and the source of the Gods, but he was also depicted with two faces like the Egyptian Saturn; it is therefore clear that he is Saturn. Likewise the ancient name of Italy, Oenotria (which is undoubtedly derived from the founder of the nation), seems to indicate that Janus and Ὄινος wine, or Ὀινὴ vine, are from the same root. Wine in Hebrew is יינ, jain. And Janus has the epithet b[14] Consivius from conserendo ('sowing together'). Others may determine whether these names were formed from Noah by a transposition of syllables. For he was the first to plant a vineyard. And Critics have long observed that in the formation of names, letters were frequently transposed by the ancients.

<17r>

When the world was divided between the sons of Saturn, conceive that Cham and his people came from Babylon to Egypt, a land preferable to all which fell to his lot because of its fertile soil. For just as Plato says that he reigned in Egypt[Editorial Note 123], [and that is why Egypt was once called Chamia or Chemia after Cham, and in the Holy scriptures it is called the land of Cham; and traces of the name occur more frequently in Egypt than in other places: as in the City of No Ammon, in the Nomes[Editorial Note 124] of Chemmis, Psochemmis, Psitachemmis, in a[15] the shrine of a certain Hammon situated on the island Merse in the Nile[Editorial Note 125], in the island b[16] of Chemmis[Editorial Note 127], in c[17] the City of Chemmis in the Thebaid[Editorial Note 129], in d[18] the district of Chemmis.] There too lived Mercury, whose advice and services they say that Jupiter often made use of. There too the plough and cultivated crops are said to have been first discovered by Osiris and Isis, since men had previously fed only on the spontaneous products of the earth and whatever the trees and vines bore. And we have said that crops were discovered in the silver age. Also the first war that put an end to the silver age was waged in Egypt, and it was between the sons of Cham over the nourishment of their father[Editorial Note 131], as will shortly be told. Let us hear what the Ancients have told us of these ages.

After Saturn had been sent down into shadowy Tartarus[Editorial Note 132]

<18r>

belonged[Editorial Note 133], is said to have been sent down to Tartarus while he was still reigning. Jupiter is said to have started a war against his father either because his release from the paternal yoke and his departure for Egypt were attended with some kind of violent rupture, or because the war of Nimrod (who was also called Jupiter by the Assyrians) was confused in the end with that of Jupiter Hammon. You must understand that the ages are distinguished in such a way that a new age always begins with new kings and new Reigns. The golden age lasted as long as all men lived in Babylon under the rule of Noah. The silver age began with the division of the earth and the rule of Cham in Egypt. The bronze age begins when the sons of Cham left for the different lands which were later ceded to them by their father, and when they entered upon their new and separate reigns: in the fourth place reigned Belus, grandson of Cham, who a[19] was the first to make war with iron and by involving the whole world in a many-sided war, founded the empire of the Assyrians.

The last {age} is of hard iron[Editorial Note 135] < insertion from f 17v > < text from f 18r resumes >

Now this is how Diodorus [Editorial Note 136] describes how the kingdom of Jupiter was divided between his sons. When Osiris had settled the affairs of Egyptitalic and placed the administration of the whole kingdom in the hands of his wife Isis, he gave her Mercury as counselor, because he excelled all the rest of his friends in prudence. And he appointed Hercules general of the empire which he left who was closely related to him and admired by all men for his courage and physical strength, and he appointed Busiris as governor of the areas that lie toward Phoenicia and the maritime districts, and Antaeus as governor of Ethiopia and Libya. Then he himself made a journey [into Ethiopia] accompanied by his brother whom the Greeks call Apollo. Since Cham and Osiris reigned together in Egypt Diodorus confuses the dominion of both with each other, and attributes to the son the achievements of the father. You should understand therefore that it was not Osiris but Cham who distributed the lands between his subjects, and put Busiris in charge of Phoenicia, Antaeus in charge of Libya and the western areas of Ethiopia, and Osiris of Egypt and the southern parts of Ethiopia, and then Osiris with his son, Apollo, led colonies to the parts of Ethiopia which had fallen to their lot. For Apollo, i.e., Horus for the Egyptians, and Horus was not the brother but the son of Osiris, as Diodorus says in the very next words, and other writers too agree[Editorial Note 137] < insertion from f 18v > < text from f 18r resumes >

<28r> <29r>

The facts about Osiris are confirmed by several arguments. For as Misraim was King and father of the whole of Egypt, so too was Osiris. For all Egyptians worshipped Osiris and Isis as the common parents of the whole of Egypt with the greatest veneration. Witness is Herodotus bk. 2: The Egyptians, he says, do not worship the same gods all together except for Isis and Osiris. The cult of these names extended as widely as the Posterity of Misraim and no further. Their tombs were religiously preserved [reading asservabantur], and the sites of their great deeds were on display[Editorial Note 138]. The most ancient cities of all the Egyptians were founded by them and by their contemporaries. * < insertion from the right margin of f 29r > * such as Thebes by Misraim and Bubaste in Lower Egypt by Isis. < text from f 29r resumes > and the earliest laws of Egypt are said to have been given by Isis. Further)[Editorial Note 139] they said. In commemoration of the discovery of cultivated crops and the plough a[20] they always invoked Isis at the time of the harvest, and at the festival of Isis b they carried vessels of wheat and barley. Therefore the Image of Serapis bore a measuring-vessel of corn on its Head, and the Oxen by which the ground was worked were consecrated to both Isis and Osiris with great solemnity. Hence since cultivated crops are said to have been discovered in the silver age, it follows that Osiris lived at that time and therefore that he is Misraim himself; <30r> [and] Misraim and his wife went off to various kingdoms, as some scholars believe, in the manner of other of the very earliest peoples. Note however that Misraim is a dual name, and signifies not so much the father of the people as the people itself, namely the two Egypts, Lower Egypt where the Shepherds ruled at one time, and Upper Egypt which is called Thebais. From the personal name the last Egyptian month was called Mesori, and Egypt was sometimes called Masor, 2 Kings 19.24, Isaiah, 19.6, Micah, 7.12 [for 9.12][Editorial Note 140], and its Metropolis of Alexandria even to this day is called a Maser by the Saracens[Editorial Note 141]. And Masor a or מצור signifies a protected or narrow place from the root צור, Sor, to constrict; whence צר, Sar, narrow, or narrow place. For Egypt was protected on all sides by cliffs and by the river Nile, and was very narrow in width. Hence the Egyptians used to say Sor or Sir instead of Masor, as in the words Bu-siris, Cala-siris, Pelo-siris, in a certain stretch of the Nile which was called Siris, in the Star Sirius, and in the God Sarapis. The Nile and the Star Sirius were sacred to Osiris, and were therefore, from his Egyptian name, called Siris and Sirius, which is Sir, if you remove the terminations added by the Greeks. Hence the Nile is called Sihor by the Hebrews (Jos. 13.3 and Jer. 2.18). And Serapis was the Ox sacred to Osiris, which they also called Apis, and by the compound name of Ser-Apis i.e., the ox of Osiris. The Image of Serapis was also called by this name. The Egyptian name of Osiris therefore was both Sir or Sor and Misor, for which the Greeks said Osiris (from hearing, in the solemn Rites of this God, the funeral laments of the Egyptians and their frequent Exclamations of אוי צר, O Sar). For Plutarch in his Isis complains that the Name Osiris is not Egyptian but formulated by the Greeks, though he recognises the name Sarapis as Egyptian. But if the Egyptian Name of Osiris is Sar or Sor, and this name (as already shown) is the same as Masor, Osiris will be the same as Masor or Misraim. Add to this that Diodorus says in bk. 1 that Saturn begat, as some men say, Osiris and Isis, but as the majority assert, he begat Jupiter and Juno, and their children were Osiris Isis and Typho.[Editorial Note 142] Evidently for the Assyrians, who mean Hamon by Saturn, Osiris and Isis are children of Saturn, for others they are <31r> children of Jupiter, and thus by the consensus of all they are children of Cham. Again Diodorus writes[Editorial Note 143] that on the pillars erected to Isis and Osiris in Egypt Saturn, the youngest-born, is said to be the father of Isis and Osiris, and Isis the mother of Horus. The youngest-born, Saturn, is Cham, being younger than his father and all his brothers. For the Egyptian Saturn is certainly not younger than Cham. And I believe that the pillars were erected there on the orders of the Babylonians, and this is why Cham is called the youngest-born, Saturn. For to the Babylonians Cham [reading Chamus] was Saturn. Furthermore Diodorus writes in bk.1 that Osiris is the son of Jupiter, king of Egypt, whom they call Ammon. And Sanchoniatho[Editorial Note 144] (by far the earliest Writer and a careful investigator of historical origins [reading originum]) says that Isiris (the inventor of the three letters) is the brother of the Χνα Chna, who later was called the first Phoenician. The Canaanites, who in the wars of Joshua migrated from every part of the land of Canaan into Africa, were called Paeni or Phaenices,[Editorial Note 145] and the Septuagint Translators substitute Phaenice for Canaan, and therefore Phaenice and the land of Canaan are words with the same meaning. Hence the first Phoenician or Father of the Phoenicians is the same as Chanaan, Father of the Chanaanites, who is here, in an abbreviated form, called Chna. For the land of Canaan too, by a similar abbreviation of a word, was once called Chna, and the people Chnai. Stephanus of Byzantium in his book on Cities[Editorial Note 146]: Chna, this is what Phoenicia used to be called; and a bit later: the people of this place, Chnaans[Editorial Note 147] The word Chanaan, exactly like the word Hamon, is expanded by a grammatical termination. The root word is Chana, humble (i.e. servant of servants, Genesis, 9) and, in contracted form, Chna. Therefore Osiris is the brother of Chanaan, and therefore son of Cham, and is Misraim, father of the Egyptians. This is what had to be demonstrated.

What we have expounded to this point we will further confirm from Sanchoniatho[Editorial Note 148]. In surveying the generations of the Gods from the beginning of the world and naming two Gods for each generation, in the tenth generation, in place of Xisuthrus or Noah who for the Chaldaeans and Moses is tenth, he puts Ager and Agricola,[Editorial Note 149] and says that in the books of the ancients Agricola was named the greatest of the Gods, an altogether exceptional honour, and that the whole genus of farmers and hunters is descended from these two, and that they left sons Amynus and Magus, to whom the credit is given for first establishing Farms and flocks. Their children were Misor and Sydyc; Misor had a son Taautus, the inventor of the first written Alphabet, <32r> and also a Ager and Rusticus or Agricola; from the latter the race of Farmers and hunters is descended; they left sons, Amyna and [21] Magus, to whom credit is given for developing Farms and flocks. Their children were Misor and Sydyc, Misor had a son Taautus inventor of the first written Alphabet, whom the Egyptians [22] called Thoor, the Alexandrians Thoyth, and the Greeks Hermes. # < insertion from f 30v > # < text from f 32r resumes >

That Antaeus is Phut is confirmed by the fact that he was not put in charge of some small province adjoining Egypt but held sway far and wide in Africa, placing his seat in Mauretania, in the city of Tingi, which is a very long way from Egypt, and he is the founder of that People. Pliny[Editorial Note 151]: Tingi was originally founded by Antaeus: and, a bit further on, about the neighbouring towns of Zilis and Lixus: This is the site of the palace of Antaeus, and of the contest with Hercules, and the gardens of the Hesperides. Lucan says of these kingdoms of Antaeus, ✝

From there he makes for the land of rounded hills and eroded rocks

which a reliable tradition calls the realm of Antaeus[Editorial Note 152]

<33r>

Plutarch in Sertorius[Editorial Note 153] on Tingi: The Libyans have a tradition that Antaeus lies there. And a little later: The Tingitae have a legend that after the death of Antaeus, his wife Tinga lay with Hercules, and bore a son, Sophaces, who ruled over the region and gave the town his mother's name. Solinus[Editorial Note 154]: The next place you come to is Tingi , now a colony of Mauretania, whose first Founder was Antaeus . But Phut too founded this people, placing his seat in these very regions, as I infer from the name given to the places. For this region was called Phut by the Hebrews, on the evidence of Arias Montanus in his Biblical Apparatus[Editorial Note 155]. And Jerome (in the Hebrew version [in tradit. Heb.]) says: Phut is from Libya; the river of Mauretania is called Phut to this day after him, and the whole district around it is called Phutensis; many Writers both Greek and Latin are witnesses of this fact. The same is said by Josephus, Antiquities, 1.7[Editorial Note 156], Eusebius, On Places[Editorial Note 157], and Isidore in bk. 9, ch. 2 of his Origins. Phut and Antaeus therefore will be the same. This was the origin of the war between Antaeus and Hercules. Osiris had raped either the wife of his brother Typho or, more likely, Atlas's daughter Maia, and had a son by her, [23] he had raped and had a son by her, Anubis[Editorial Note 158]. Some years later Typho shut up his brother in a chest after receiving him at a banquet and Hurls him into the river Nile; hence the story of Lycaon; Isis goes wandering in search of her husband, finds the chest washed up on the seashore, and having found it, carries it away and buries it in a field at night. Typho coming by chance upon it, cuts the body into many parts and usurps the kingship of Egypt. Isis gathers up the scattered parts and buries them — — and entrusts her children, Orus and Bubastis, to her mother Latona. The Egyptians flee and Latona withdraws with her youngsters to the island in the Nile called         . Typho wanders over the whole of Egypt in search of them. Hercules hastens to the help of the Egyptians with reinforcements. A battle with clubs of several days duration takes place; it occurs beside the river Nile near the town of Antaea in the part of Arabia which lies between the Red Sea and the Nile. Typho and his Allies are overcome, and he is handed over in bonds to Isis. Isis assumes the kingship with her son Orus. Isis releases Typho. Again and yet again there is fighting. Finally Hercules carries the conquered Typho off to the farthest parts of the earth. For Typho is the same as Antaeus and Phut, as I shall now prove with the following arguments. Diodorus is our authority for the fact that the Battle of Horus and Typho took place by the river [][Editorial Note 159] near the town which now has the name of Antaea, from the Antaeus whom Hercules did to death in the time of Osiris. # < insertion from f 32v > # And Hercules in Ovid, (Metamorphoses bk. 9, Story 3) says              – I deprived savage Antaeus of his mother's nourishment[Editorial Note 160]       – Antaeus therefore made his attack on the kingship of Jupiter in Egypt, and that was where he fought with Hercules < text from f 33r resumes > , and it was in the same place where Typho was overcome. It is not likely that there would have been different enemies who fought with Hercules in the same place, in the same cause, and were overcome in the same place. The war of Hercules with Typho is that celebrated <34r> Battle of the Giants which the Ancients tell of, in which the heavenly Gods, Jupiter, Apollo and the others, with the help of Hercules (i.e., Cham, and Horus with his Allies, and the help of Chus) overwhelmed the Giants with the thunderbolt of war when they were grasping at the dominion of heaven (i.e. kingship). This is how Ovid tells us that the beginning of the tumults is described by a daughter of Pierus:[24]

She sang of the battle of the gods and giants,

ascribing undeserved honour to the Giants and belittling the deeds of the mighty Gods:

how Typhoeus, sprung from the lowest depths of earth,

inspired the heavenly gods with fear,

and how they all turned their backs and fled, until, weary,

they found refuge in the land of Egypt and the seven-mouthed Nile.

How even here Typhoeus, son of earth, pursued them,

and the gods hid themselves in lying shapes:

'Jove thus became a ram,' said she, 'the lord of flocks,

whence Libyan Ammon even to this day is represented with curving horns;

Apollo hid in a crow's shape, Bacchus in a goat;

the sister of Phoebus in a cat, Juno in a snow-white cow,

Venus[Editorial Note 161] in a fish, Mercury in an ibis bird.'[Editorial Note 162]

Such was the consternation of the Gods said to be, until Hercules arrived. For it is admitted by all, says Diodorus, that Hercules brought help to the heavenly Gods in the war of the Giants. < insertion from f 33v > ✝ In pretty much the same way, Agatharcides describes these tumults in Photius[Editorial Note 163]. They fable, he says, that Minerva, great as she is, concealed herself in the tiny body of a swallow, and the majesty of Jupiter migrated into the form of a Swan, and the beauty of Ceres was transformed into the ugliest disguise. And Jupiter who is supposed to be the greatest, suffered a treacherous attack from his closest relative, his wife's own brother, and was saved by his greatest enemies, I mean the Titans, who emerged from bonds and the nether darkness and their imprisonment there, and when they had put Neptune to flight, they returned[Editorial Note 164] . Then [they say that] Venus was wounded by a human hand and that Mars was held in chains by Otus and Ephialtes [sons of Neptune]. And that Dis was struck with arrows by Hercules in his own kingdom and suffered the most terrible pains. Neptune and Mars here are Typho and Hercules, the Titans are said to be children of Jupiter Ammon by his wife Titaea, and sometimes are taken for Neptune and his children, and very often (as in this passage) for Mars and his children. They are said to have been hateful to Zeus because of the wars which they later waged, striking Dis, that is Misraim, or Egypt, with their arrows. And they are banished to the kingdom of Pluto, where they had lived when they had not yet left Egypt, at the place called Acherusia, where the dead were later buried. < text from f 34r resumes > And just as Typho or Typhoeus is celebrated in the popular story as a monstrous Giant, so too is Antaeus. Plutarch in Sertorius about Tingi: The Libyans have a tradition that Antaeus lies there; and Sertorius dug up his sepulchre, not giving credence to the barbarians because of its size; and when he came upon a body sixty cubits in length, as the story goes, he was astounded. Strabo has the same account, bk. 17. Admittedly a more than fantastic story, but one which shows that the war of Hercules with Antaeus was the famous Battle of the Giants. Hercules and Antaeus were the leaders of two peoples, and therefore they did not fight alone but along with their forces. In such a war it was inevitable that the whole of Egypt would be upset. And the Egyptians recognised no other war of this magnitude but the one with Typho. Also there was no other enemy whom Hercules could encounter, except Canaan, whom we will discuss later. Chus and Chanaan were Asiatic. Phut alone was African, and Hyginus tells us that it was an African with whom the Egyptians fought (Fable 274) in the following words. Africans, he says, and Egyptians first <35r> fought with clubs; later Belus, son of Neptune, made war with the sword; that is why it was called war. The same point is implied by what Diodorus (bk. 3) adds, in writing about the inhabitants of the interior of Africa: the story is that after making an assault at some time into Egypt, they emptied a great part of the country of inhabitant – evidently by the flight described above. This is also the meaning of the point that Typho was Neptune and Neptune was a Libyan God. For a[25] Plutarch tells us[Editorial Note 165] that the Egyptians say that ‡ < insertion from f 34v > ‡ Typho is the sea; and therefore the priests detest the sea, and they call salt the spit of Typho. Helmsmen of ships are not greeted by them, since they are engaged with the sea and seek their sustenance from it, and above all, for the very same reason, b[26] they hate fish, and when they want to indicate hatred they portray a fish, and they call the farthest parts of the land which are washed by the sea, Nephtis, the wife of Typho, < text from f 35r resumes > Therefore Typho is Neptune, the God of the sea. And Herodotus made it plain that Neptune is a Libyan God. In the beginning, he says, none made use of this name except the Libyans, who always hold this God in honour. The Egyptians therefore also think that he exists, but they offer him no worship.[Editorial Note 166] Just as the Egyptians particularly honoured their father, Osiris, the Assyrians their king Belus, the Latins their father Janus, and every Nation their own ancestors, so the Africans in honouring Neptune claimed him as their own father. Furthermore, the Ancients ‡ < insertion from f 34v > ‡ by making a[27] Libya the wife of Neptune, < text from f 35r resumes > by naming strong men and Tyrants (like b[28] Belus and c[29] Busiris) the sons of Neptune and Libya, were indicating that Nephtis, wife of Typho, is the region of Libya. They called the sons of Neptune Tyrants, because Neptune was a strong man and the father of seditions.

Θησευς υιος του Αττικου Αεγεως etc.[Editorial Note 168]

Theseus was the son of Attic Aegeus {and} Aethra,

And they spoke of him as a vigorous son of Neptune,

For they say that the sons and friends and lovers of Neptune

are all high spirited and all vigorous[Editorial Note 169]

d[30] A. Gellius says rather more clearly: The Poets called the sons of Jupiter outstanding in virtue, prudence and strength, for example, Aeacus and Minos and Sarpedon; they spoke of the sons of Neptune as very fierce and immune to all humanity, as being born from the sea — the Cyclops and Cercyon and Sciron and the Laestrygonians.[Editorial Note 171] And Bk. 2, ch. 28: The earliest Greeks called Neptune 'earth-shaker' and land-quaker'. Homer, Iliad, 3.159 calls Neptune ευρυστερνον, broad-chested[Editorial Note 172]. Neptune therefore was a very strong man, but fierce and savage, such as Typho is commonly described. That Typho was Libyan emerges also from the discovery and use of horses and chariots. g[31] For horses were first tamed by Neptune and the science of horsemanship was passed down from him; hence he is called Hippius, i.e. 'of horses', and h[32] Plutarch <36r> on the basis of Egyptian doctrine writes that the Bear is the constellation of Typho etc. < insertion from f 35v >                – and i[33] Virgil[Editorial Note 173] finally calls it the radiant Bear of Lycaon. For Typho, who perfidiously slew his banqueting guests and tore them into bits is Lycaon; hence the name k[34] Lycian Apollo. By Ursa and Arctos[Editorial Note 175] < text from f 36r resumes > they mean the Wain, for Ursa is a more recent constellation devised by the Greeks. Achilles Tatius in his Introduction to the Phaenomena of Aratus: In the 'Sphere'[Editorial Note 176] of the Egyptians the Dragon is not represented or named, nor are the Bears nor Cepheus; but different shapes and different names are given to the Phenomena. So too in the Sphere of Chaldaeans. Horses and the Wain therefore are Symbols of Neptune. These things also relate to the Africans. Dionysius Periegetes:

Cyrene of the fair horses, a breed of men from Amyclae[Editorial Note 177]

And Spartan Cyrene next, mother of horses.

2 Chronicles, 16.8: And there were Lubaeans [i.e. Libyans] in a large army with horses and chariots. Herodotus in Melpomene:[Editorial Note 178] The Greeks learned to form four-horse chariots from the Libyans. Maximus of Tyre[Editorial Note 179]: Chariot-races are specially characteristic of Cyrene. Ephorus: The Athenians practise the art of sailing, the Thessalians horsemanship, the Boeotians gymnastics, but the Cyrenians devote themselves to skill with chariots. A Scholiast on Pindar's 4th. Pythian Ode: He calls Cyrene equestrian not because of the present occasion, but because Neptune taught the Libyans to yoke horses to the chariot. Neptune is thought to be African, and therefore the same as Phut. This will be more clearly established when I have shown who Atlas is.

b[35] Diodorus[Editorial Note 180] makes Atlas contemporary with Antaeus, the first Hercules and Busiris, c Eusebius places him a little bit earlier. Atlas is associated with Hercules in the fables of the Poets. And he is made to be older than Mercury, who was born from his daughter Maia. Sanchoniatho[Editorial Note 181] too places him among the oldest Gods. Elioun, he says, his name meaning 'the Most High' and his wife Beruth, lived in the neighbourhood of Byblos. — Their children were Caelus and Terra[Editorial Note 182] –. These in turn had four children, Elus, who is called Saturn, Baetylus[Editorial Note 183]; Dagon who is called Sito, and Atlas. And a little later: The allies in war of Elus are Eloim, as you might say Saturnii. Further Saturn killed his son Sadidus with his sword, and a little while later he also cut off the head of a daughter, so that all the rest of the Gods were profoundly horrified by the mentality of Saturn. This Philosophy of the Syrians spread into Phoenicia. For Jupiter Belus a little bit later[Editorial Note 184] is called son of Saturn; and for this reason Saturn will be Chus the father of Belus. His brother Dagon or Sito is explained a little later[Editorial Note 185] by Sanchoniatho[Editorial Note 186] as that God who discovered corn and the plough, and thus is Osiris. Baetylus seems to be Canaan, the name being derived either from the Pyrethaei, about whom I will speak later, or from the baetyli[Editorial Note 187] or polished stones of the Phoenicians, of which Photius, out of Damascius,[Editorial Note 188] says: Near Heliopolis in Syria, Asclepiades ascended the mountain of Libanus, and saw many of what they call Baetylia or Baetyli, of which they tell many marvellous things. It remains that the fourth of the brothers, Phut, is Atlas. This account by Sanchoniatho is corroborated by what Diodorus[Editorial Note 189] wrote on the basis of the tradition of the Atlantians: Uranus had the Titans by his wife Titaea – Saturn, Atlas, Hyperion and others, as well as daughters, the two eldest of whom were more famous than the rest, namely Basilia and Rhea, called Pandora by some. Basilia was united in marriage with her brother Hyperion, and when she had two children by him, Helius and Selene[Editorial Note 190], the brothers entered into a conspiracy and slaughtered Hyperion, and they stifle Helius who was still a boy by submerging him in the Eridanus and drowning him. When this disaster came to light, Selene who passionately loved her brother threw herself headlong from the roof. Their mother insisted that her people should venerate them now that they were dead with divine worship, and that her own body no one thereafter should touch. – After Hyperion[Editorial Note 191] had been taken from their midst, the children of Caelus[Editorial Note 192] divided the kingdom of their father among themselves; the most famous of whom were Atlas and Saturn. The regions bordering the Ocean went by lot to Atlas, and he called the people there Atlantian and the greatest mountain in the land Atlas after his own name. – Among his many sons Hesperus stood out. Daughters were born to him – Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Sterope, Merope, Halcyone and Celaeno. Uniting with heroes of the most noble stamp and with the Gods themselves [i.e., their brothers], they laid the foundations of many nations of men. Thus the eldest Maia, from the embrace of Jupiter, gave birth to Mercury, inventor of many arts. They were raised to the sky, and the constellation of the Pleiades was dedicated to them. They[Editorial Note 193] report of Saturn, brother of Atlas, that his impiety and avarice were outrageous; he took his Sister Rhea into his conjugal bed and begat Jupiter, who was later give the cognomen of Olympian. They say that he had the whole world under his sway, – and by adopting a manner of life quite contrary to that of his father, he showed himself fair and humane towards all men. He received a kingdom which had either been freely given to him by his father or transferred to him by his subjects because of their hatred of his father. And although Saturn made war against him with the help of the Titans, still Jupiter emerged as victor in the battle, and Lord of nature. And in travelling subsequently throughout the whole inhabited world he deserved well of the human race. And because he excelled in strength of body and every type of virtue, <37v> <38r> he easily united the whole world under him. In this he took especial care to impose penalties on the wicked and impious and to reward the common people with benefits. And when he found release from human affairs, all men with passionate zeal acclaimed him everlasting lord of the whole universe. Thus Diodorus in bk. 3. Such is the agreement of this with what I quoted from Sanchoniatho that I could easily believe that the Philosophy of the Syrians came to Mauretania from the Phoenicians. For Olympian Jupiter who had the whole world under his sway, and who, after he had passed from among men, was acclaimed Lord of the whole universe, that is, Belus in the Syrian language, is most certainly the great Jupiter Belus of the Assyrians. And therefore his father, Saturn, is Chus (a man depraved in morals, as also described by Sanchoniatho); and Hyperion, the brother of Saturn, whom his brothers did away with, is Osiris. The children of Hyperion, Helius and Selene, are Orus and Bubaste, or Apollo and Diana, i. e., Sun and Moon (as they are called here); and his wife, Basilia, is Isis, Queen of Egypt. For after the death of her husband she remained for ever a widow and by instituting sacred rites duly set her husband and son among the Gods. Hence the Egyptians imagined that b[36] Isis found a medicine of immortality by which she not only brought her son Orus back to life and restored his breath after he had been overcome by the machinations of the Titans and found dead in the water, but also made him to partake of immortality[Editorial Note 194]. By the Eridanus in which Helius perished I understand the Nile. Phut (the famous Ethiopian Charioteer, Phaethon) was struck by a thunderbolt of war from Jupiter Amon. The Europeans insist this is the Po, attracting other people's myths to themselves. Things which are older than their literature mean nothing to them. But this dispute is insignificant. It remains that Atlas, the brother of Saturn and Hyperion, is Phut. For when Saturn and Atlas divided their father's kingdom among themselves, and Saturn ruled in the East, it is evident that Atlas ruled far and wide in Africa. For the whole of c[37] Ethiopia too was once called Atlantia, and the various peoples sprung from the sons of Atlas make it clear that he was the common father of the Africans. Furthermore, Atlas is the very same name as Antaeus. For Atal התל signifies false and Atal Ante signifies the false Antaeus. It pleased the Egyptians to speak in this way, because Osiris was done away with by treachery. And Atlas is a contraction for Atlantes and Atlantes for Atal Ante, as I infer from the name of the girl Atalanta.

And now here is my argument that Antaeus is Neptune. The ancients took the whole habitable earth <39r> to be a round island punctuated by some straits and surrounded by Ocean. The earliest Peoples settled in the middle of it. Antaeus alone, having been banished to the furthest lands right beside the pillars of Hercules, was a neighbour of the Ocean. And for this reason they regarded him as God of the sea, naming the whole Ocean Atlantic after him. The Geographers in Herodotus bk. 4 describe Ocean flowing all around and the earth shaped like a disc, as if it had been turned on a lathe[Editorial Note 195]. The Chaldaean translator {of} Eccles{iastes}, 1.7: Ocean which surrounds the globe like a ring[Editorial Note 196]. Orpheus on Jupiter and Pan [Editorial Note 197]:

The circle of fair-flowing[Editorial Note 198], tireless Ocean

Which rolls around the earth in a perpetual flood.

Strabo bk. 1, p. 4[Editorial Note 199]: In the forging of the arms of Achilles, Ocean is set around the rim of the round Shield. ‡ < insertion from f 38v > ‡ Strabo p. 64: Eratosthenes added that the nature of the inhabited world is such that there is a greater distance from east to west, since the mathematicians say that it forms a circle and returns upon itself[Editorial Note 200]. < text from f 39r resumes > Isaiah 40.22: Who sits above the circle of the earth. Proverbs 8.27: when he drew a circle on the face of the Abyss. Gyrus[Editorial Note 201] here is חונ, og. Hence Ὠγὴν[Editorial Note 202], the ancient name for Ocean. Hesychius: Ὠγὴν, Ὠκεανὸς[Editorial Note 203]. This is the origin of those disputes about the central point of the world, which some placed at Delphi, others in Jerusalem, and the Egyptians in Egypt. e[38] Horus Apollo: The land of the Egyptians is, as it were, the navel and centre of the whole world, no less than the pupil is of the eye. And Neptune, together with his wife Nephthis, was located at the edge of the earth and Ocean (the source of all the Gods); hence he was called f[39] γαιήοχος[Editorial Note 205], earth-encircler. Juno in Homer, Iliad, ξ200:

For I am going to visit the ends of the bountiful earth

and Ocean, the source of the Gods.

Homer, Odyssey, 15. 282 – Neptune returning from the shores of the Ethiopians. Homer elsewhere calls the Ethiopians the furthest of men. This is also why he places the banquets of the Gods in Ethiopia, and the Atlantians boasted that the Gods were sprung from them. To the same effect the Egyptians say in Diodorus: The furthest parts of the land and the promontories and the parts that reach down to the sea are called Nephthis by them, and they say she is the wife of Typho. Similarly Lactantius[Editorial Note 206]: All the coasts and the islands fell to the lot of Neptune. How can that be proved? Well, indeed, the old histories tell us so. The old author, Euhemerus, who was from the city of Messana, collected the deeds of Jupiter and of the others who are supposed to be gods and compiled their history from their titles and from the sacred inscriptions which were preserved in temples of great antiquity, etc. Ennius translated this history and followed it, and these are his words: thereupon[Editorial Note 207] Jupiter gave the empire of the sea to Neptune, so that he might reign over all the islands and all places which are next to the sea. Understand <40r> Jupiter of the Chaldaeans and the Atlantic Sea. Therefore when Antaeus reigned in the city of Tingis on the very shore of Ocean beside the columns of Hercules, and all the others (at the time when the sacred rites and symbols of the gods were being instituted) lived in the middle of the earth, the whole of Ocean together with the islands and their sea coasts were dedicated to Antaeus as God of the sea. For a[40] Suidas[Editorial Note 208] tells us that both the western and the eastern Ocean and all the unsailable seas were called Atlantic by the ancients. Hence b[41] Strabo writes that India ends at the Eastern sea and at the Southern part of the Atlantic, and c[42] in another place that the Atlantic sea joins up with itself. Zosimus writes that the river Rhine discharges into the Atlantic sea, which is now called the German sea. In the Dream of Scipio it is said that the whole of the earth inhabited by us is surrounded by the Atlantic sea which we call Ocean.[Editorial Note 209] Julius Firmicus and the Author of the book On the World which is ascribed to Aristotle say that the whole earth is surrounded by the Atlantic sea like an Island. Herodotus knows of only two seas: he says that {the sea which the Greeks}[Editorial Note 210] sail (namely the Mediterranean) is one, the Caspian is the other. Also the islands of Ocean were named from Atlas, for example, the Fortunate Isles, which Plutarch in his Life of Sertorius calls the Atlantic islands, and Plato's great island of Atlantis, which some think is America. Therefore everything that has to do with Ocean is Atlantic. And their Gods are known from the most ancient names of the Planets and the Elements.

Our reasoning here about Neptune is also confirmed by his name of Phut.[Editorial Note 211] For פוץ, Phuts, dispersed, dissipated, crushed and contracted with dispersion, a[43] becomes Phut if the letters צ and ט change places: most apt for the Africans ever since Hercules dispersed them when he conquered them, placing Typho in the furthest parts of the earth, so that he could not renew the war. For it is an obviously poetic fiction to say that Typho lies in Mount Etna and vomits out fire, or discharges noxious gasses in some Egyptian lake. From פוצ comes נפוצ and נפצ or נפט, Naphat, he was dispersed, and נפטו, Naphtu, they were dispersed. Hence Neptys, wife of Typho, and Latin Neptune. From Phut or Put are also formed the Greek Pytho and, with a reversal of letters, Typho. For the Greeks speak indifferently of Typho and Pytho. Pathros too is formed from this, a name of Orus. For Pathros is a son of Misraim, Genesis, 10.14, <41r> from whose reign Thebais was called the land of Pathros, Jeremiah 44.1, Ezekiel, 29.14, and thus is the same as Orus. And for the Septuagint translators, he is also Φαθώρης[Editorial Note 212] and Παθούρης[Editorial Note 213]. For Jerome he is Patures, and Phatures, a word compounded from Phat or Path and Ores or Ures or (with a Hebrew termination) Oros. Pathros therefore is a contracted form of Path-Oros, a name compounded from the name of the defeated enemy, Put, and the name of the victor, Orus, and for the Egyptians it signifies the same as Apollo Pythius does for the Greeks. For on the evidence of Herodotus, Ωρος[Editorial Note 214] in Egyptian is Orus. Hence it is likely that this Egyptian name of Apollo Pythius came to the Greeks together with the God.

<42r>

[Editorial Note 215] the inventor whom the Egyptians[44] called Thoor, the Alexandrians Thoyth, and the Greeks Hermes.[Editorial Note 216] Those things are taken partly from Egyptian and partly from Chaldaean records: and therefore a double genealogy of the Gods is given here, the one Egyptian – of the Gods Agricola, Amynus, Misor and Mercury, the other Chaldaean – of the Gods Ager, Magus, Sydye, and the Dioscuri. The races of Hunters and Farmers who descend from Ager and Agricola are the Arabs and the Egyptians. For the latter their first father Noah is celebrated under the name of Agricola, for the latter under the name of Ager or nomadic Hunter. Both wanted their first father to be like themselves, and the Egyptians indeed truly. For Noah was truly a Farmer and the father of all Farmers. Furthermore, from the praise of Agricola as the greatest of Gods, from his order in the genealogies as the tenth from the creation of the world, from his son Amynus, i.e., Amon or Ham, and his grandson Misor, i.e. Masor or Misraim, it is clear that he is Noah. The connection with Mercury confirms that Amynus is Jupiter Amon and Miorus is Osiris. For Mercury. Ager therefore who is placed as contemporary with Agricola is also Noah, and his son Magus is Cham, and the easterners gave him that name because he was the father of Philosophers. The Arabs were shepherds, and therefore they here give the credit for the art of sheep-raising to Magus, and rightly so. For Hamon, because of his discovery of the art of sheep-raising is always portrayed with ram's horns [and Ericthonius[Editorial Note 217] (not the Greek one, but Neptune, the real inventor of boats) still carries on his back the goat and the kid that he took from Jupiter Hammon.] Therefore Cus, the father of Belus, is Sydyc, the son of Magus, and as such, the Jupiter of the Chaldaeans. For his sons are here called Dioscuri, Διὸς κουροι, sons of Jupiter. Xenophon has explained the reason for this in his De Aequivocis[Editorial Note 218]: The most serene of the kings of noble families who founded cities, are called Saturns. Their first-born are called Jupiters and Junos. Their bravest grandsons are called Hercules. The fathers of Saturns are called Caelus, their Wives are Rhea, and the Wives of Caelus are called Vesta. There are therefore as many Caelus, Vestas, Rheas, Junos and Hercules, as there are Saturns. Also the same person that is Hercules for some peoples is Jupiter for others. For Ninus who was Hercules for the Chaldaeans was Jupiter for the Assyrians. Therefore the Chaldaeans, while they had Ninus for Hercules, understood by Jupiter Chus, the father of Ninus, and by Saturn they understood Cham, the grandfather of Ninus, and therefore, in order not to leave out Noah, they provided Saturn, the first of the Egyptian Gods, with Caelus for father and Terra for mother. Hence it came about that in the east, <43r> wherever the philosophy of the Chaldaeans spread, Caelus was used for Noah and Saturn for Cham. And thus the children of Cham – Neptune, Pluto and Venus – were said to be children of Saturn, and his grandsons – Mercury, Apollo and Diana – were said to be children of Jupiter, all the Gods being brought into relation with the Arabic Genealogy. But among the Assyrians where Belus was Jupiter, Chus was Saturn, Cham was Caelus, and Noah was Hypsuranius. And though this third pattern is more recent than the others, it was disseminated very widely throughout the East, together with the cult of Jupiter Belus. Sanchoniatho later gives the same account, as will be explained later.

Therefore it is no objection to Apollo, Diana and Mercury being children of Osiris, that they are said by the Chaldaeans and their followers to be children of Jupiter. That Apollo and Diana are Orus and Bubastis, and that they are children of Osiris and Isis, is abundantly confirmed by a[45] Herodotus, b[46] Diodorus, c[47] Plutarch and d[48] Macrobius. That Diana is the same as Proserpina, and that Proserpina is the daughter of Ceres, and that the latter is Isis, is agreed on all hands. That Mercury is the son of Cham and his niece Maia, is not likely. Sanchoniatho tells us, on the basis of Egyptian records, that he is the son of Misraim, and Plutarch tells us[Editorial Note 219] that Anubis, who is the same as Mercury, was evidently born to Misraim and the wife of Typho, was exposed, not found by dogs, and was brought up by Isis. Thus he will be an illegitimate child of the wife of Typho. Plutarch tells us[Editorial Note 220]

It is more likely that he was born from Misraim and Typho's eldest daughter, Maia. For everyone states that Typho is Maia's father, Atlas, and that Mercury is the child of Maia, daughter of Atlas. It will be proved later. And it is manifest that Mercury is Anubis. Both being illegitimate children of an Egyptian father and an African mother, they were both associated with Osiris and Isis. Anubis is always portrayed with a dog's head, and the dog is a[49] sacred to him. And the dog (on the evidence of Horus Apollo) signifies a sacred scribe and prophet. It is also a name of Mercury, on the evidence of c Plutarch. Servius on Virgil:

'Barking Anubis': Mercury, he says, is depicted with a dog's head because nothing is more intelligent than a dog[Editorial Note 221]. Apuleius likewise (bk. 11, p. 384)[Editorial Note 222]: The messenger of the gods above – raising high his dog's neck, carrying a caduceus[Editorial Note 223] in his left hand. And Strabo, bk. 17, p. 812: The inhabitants of Hermopolis worship the Dog-headed one [i.e. Anubis]. There is a nome[Editorial Note 224] called Cynopolite and a City of dogs in which Anubis is held in honour, and veneration is offered to dogs, and a kind of Sacred feeding is organised. All Egypt worships the ox, the dog and the cat[Editorial Note 225]. Such worship belongs to no less a God than Mercury. Also Mercury's name of Ηρμάνουβις[Editorial Note 226] confirms the same thing, as well as the fact that Egyptians say that the Horizon belongs to Anubis. For the Planet Mercury, constant neighbour to the sun, is never seen except right on the horizon. The other Planets are seen even in the Meridian.

<43Av>

               Ch. 6
That Phut is Typho and Antaeus and Atlas and Neptune.

That Canaan is Vulcan and Prometheus and that his wife and sister Venus was Astyr or Attyrgates

Ch. 8

On the other names of the aforesaid Gods

Ch. 9

How the names of the aforesaid men were given to the stars, and what the Astronomy of the ancient Egyptians was like

Ch. 10

How the souls of men were translated to the stars, and the stars, thus ensouled, began to be regarded as intelligent gods, and on the origin and progress of idolatry and of the magic arts.

Ch. 11.

What the true religion of the children of Noah was like before it began to be corrupted by the worship of false Gods. And that the Christian religion became[Editorial Note 227] no more true nor less corrupt.

<44r>

Osiris and Isis are sometimes interpreted as being {of} the earth and the Element of earth, and sometimes of the Nile and the land of Egypt, and sometimes even of the Sun and Moon. For such is the superstition of all nations that men have always attempted to raise men and promote them to the status of Deified men, and Deified men to Gods, and lesser Gods to greatest Gods. Hence it has come about that Belus, who is Mars, was worshipped among the Easterners as Olympian Jupiter and the sun, and Venus as the moon, just as Janus, who is Saturn, was worshipped as the sun by the Latins, and as Hammon, who is Jupiter, is sometimes raised to the sun among the Egyptians. But no nation has ever detracted from its Gods No one readily reduces their Gods below the dignity first given them, and for this reason, when the significance of some God is doubtful, it is reasonable to regard his significance as less noble in proportion to his antiquity. For this reason I think that Osiris should be associated with the terraqeous globe and specifically with the river Nile, and Isis with the element of earth and particularly with the land of Egypt. For Apollo [] and Diana properly relate to the Sun and the moon, and are not usually taken otherwise. Thus in the worship of Apollo the Ismenians celebrated the Sun and the Moon with this Astronomical Symbol for Apollo and Diana. They Wreathe a staff of olive wood with laurels, and adorn it with various flowers; on its tip they fix a bronze globe, from which smaller globes hang down; and in the middle of the staff smaller ribbons are fixed than those which were put at the very top[Editorial Note 228]. They wrap the lowest part of the bough all round with a saffron-cloured cloth. The globe at the top signifies for them the Sun, by which they mean Apollo; the globe below this signifies the moon; the smaller hanging globes are stars and constellations; the garlands signify the course of the year ; for they number 365. This is what Proclus tells us in his Chrestomathia in Photius[Editorial Note 229]. There is the same significance to the fact that the seven-string Lyre is accorded to Apollo as the harmonious governor of the motions of the planets, and that the Egyptians regarded the Sun as the eye of Orus, a[50] saying that Typho had struck out the eye of Orus, and had returned it back to the sun, and therefore the soul of Orus shines in the Sun as its own proper star and had returned it back to the sun[Editorial Note 231]. Therefore they believed that the soul of Orus shines in the Sun as its own proper star, and sees all things. For a[51] the Egyptians taught that the souls of the Gods shine in the stars.

Osiris is Pluto and under that name he is associated with the globe of the earth.[Editorial Note 232] This is what Plutarch[Editorial Note 233] says: Isis and Osiris are worshipped with the combined honours of Gods and Spirits[Editorial Note 234], and are endowed with great power everywhere, and with very great power over things above and below the earth. And indeed Serapis is no other than Pluto, nor does Isis differ from Proserpina, as Archimachus of Euboea pointed out, as well as Heraclides Ponticus, who believes that the Canobic oracle belongs to Pluto. Certainly Serapis and Apis have the same concerns, and signify Osiris. Most of the priests, says Plutarch[Editorial Note 235], say that Osiris and Apis are combined together as one, and they tell us by way of interpretation that Apis is to be understood as the beautiful[Editorial Note 236] image of the soul of Osiris. It is a universal law throughout Egypt (says Diodorus)[Editorial Note 237] that the sacred bulls – both the one who is called Apis and the one who is called Mnevis – are to be consecrated to Osiris and worshipped as gods. And elsewhere: sometimes they suppose that Osiris is Serapis, sometimes Dionysus, and at other times Pluto. So too Plutarch: It is better, he says, to equate Osiris with Bacchus, and Serapis with Osiris. And Porphyry (in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 3, ch. 11)[Editorial Note 238]: Serapis is exactly the same God as Pluto, and for this reason has very great power over the Spirits[Editorial Note 239]. And Macrobius, combining the cults of Sarapis and Isis, tells us that the infernal hound, Cerberus, is usually depicted at the feet of Serapis. Alexandria, he says, treats Serapis and Isis with a cult of almost awestruck reverence, and a little bit later[Editorial Note 240]: they attach a sculpture of a three-headed animal to the image of Serapis, which shows on the central and largest head the figure of a lion with a very large head, on the right side rises the head of a dog fawning with a gentle look, but the left side is finished with the head of a ravening wolf; a snake connects these animal figures with its colis, and its head bends back towards the right hand of the God, by which the monster is restrained. By this monster, so far as I infer from its heads, is signified the meeting and clash of the three peoples in that celebrated war of the Gods which <44v> was waged immediately after the death of Osiris. For the head of a Dog seems to relate to the Egyptian Mercury, the head of a Lion to the Arabian Hercules, and the head of a Wolf to the Libyan Typho. And Plutarch explicitly says that Pluto is depicted here with Cerberus. The Egyptian priests, he says[Editorial Note 241], told us that the statue of Pluto, sculpted with Cerberus and the Snake, was of no other than Serapis, because the Egyptians endow Pluto with the name of Serapis. Add to this that the river Nile which they considered sacred to Osiris is the much-sung Styx of the lower world. For Diodorus quotes {some lines} of Homer:

Παρ᾽ δ᾽ ἴσαν ὠχεανωυ τε ρὁὰς etc, that is:

They come to the waves of Ocean, and the Leucadian rock

And to the gates of the Sun, where dreams rule, a wandering race,

and further on they reach the grassy green meadows,

which are frequented by the shades, mere images of men, lacking life[Editorial Note 242].

After quoting this he tells us that by Ocean here the Nile is meant, and by the gates of the sun Heliopolis, and by the meadows of the dead are meant the pastures by the Acherusian marsh near Memphis. For, he says, very many great funerals of the Egyptians were conducted there as they transport the corpses across the river and the Acherusian marsh and lay them in crypts sited there. [Editorial Note 243]Hence also the Acheron and Charon of the Greeks. Furthermore, the whole ceremony of Osiris is a funeral ceremony, and relates to the dead as they lament the dead person every year, seek scattered limbs and bury them, and every third year they immerse and drown the bull Apis in the river Nile, and celebrate funeral rites to him as to the dead Osiris, alleging that the soul of Osiris has settled in Apis. Mercury established images of the Gods and solemn rites during the reign of Isis. Osiris alone was dead at that time. And therefore he was honoured annually with a funeral ceremony. [Editorial Note 244]And this, says Plutarch, is because today the priests, as if hating the idea and almost hiding it for fear, signify that Osiris rules over the dead, and is no other than Dis or Pluto, it being unknown how true it is, and it disturbs the mass of the people, who have a suspicion that the holy Osiris lives in the earth and under the earth, where lie the bodies of those who are supposed to be already deceased.[Editorial Note 245]

[Editorial Note 246] <46r>

{illeg} Planets and {Elements} {illeg} who lived {For} {illeg} {before} and before the time of the Chaldaeans {Tharae} {illeg} {intro} {illeg} (Joshua 24.2)[Editorial Note 247] Nino sub {milti} p{illeg}ij {illeg} Priests from Egypt lead from Egypt into Chaldaea {illeg})[Editorial Note 248] For these Gods lived in Egypt, as we indicated before, and were the founders of the people of Egypt. For a[52] Diodorus[Editorial Note 249] tells us that of all the places in the world it is in Egypt alone that there are many cities founded by the ancient Gods like Jupiter, Sol[Editorial Note 250], Hermes, Apollo, Pan, Eilithyia and several others. < insertion from f 46v > [Editorial Note 251] Besides since all the Gods are united by kinship, {and is} either a brother or a husband or son of {illeg} each other, {and} they have a common mother Cybele, and since the ancient(s)[Editorial Note 252] ... {in} {illeg} of the Gods in which they all lived at the same time, and in that[Editorial Note 253] .... of the Gods was fought with clubs in Egypt, and then {they} waged the very first war with the sword, it is obvious both that those Gods lived at the same time as the empire of the Assyrians was established in Egypt, and therefore are the first men of all who came with Cham from Babylon into Egypt after the division of the Earth; and this is also confirmed by the invention of arts. For Saturn — — — they are to be sought. < text from f 46r resumes > [Besides since all of the Gods are joined by some kinship and Cybebe is the common mother of several of them, and the ancients sometimes speak of a certain age of the Gods, and the ancients write that at that time a certain war of the Gods was waged with clubs and then Belus made the very first war with swords, all the Gods are to be sought at some common time before the foundation of the empire of the Assyrians and thus immediately after the flood]: this is also confirmed by the invention of the arts. For Saturn taught agriculture and in commemoration of this he carries a sickle, Jupiter is depicted with rams' horns because of the pastoral art of the shepherd, Mars was the first to wage war, Neptune invented the chariot and the art of horsemanship, Minerva linen, Vulcan ships and the arts of smithing and fishing, Mercury letters, commerce and various sciences, Osiris and Isis the plough and corn and the first laws by which the Egyptians coalesced into a political body. And the first inventors and authors of arts and laws are to be sought in the period immediately following the flood. For these reasons {and} others that I will explain later, I am led to believe that Noah, the first father of the Egyptians, was the most ancient of their Gods, and they called him Saturn, and his son Cham is Jupiter. The four sons of Cham – Chus, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan – are four of the sons of Jupiter, namely Mars, Osiris, Typho or Neptune, and Vulcan. If you add to these the three daughters of Jupiter – Venus and Minerva and Isis or Ceres –, and the two sons of Osiris – Thoth or Mercury and Orus or Apollo – <47r> and the {goddess} who is {illeg} {illeg}iana[Editorial Note 254], you will have all those Gods whom the Egyptians worshipped in earliest times. But in order to make these things more clear and distinct, we must give an account of the first ages in which the heavenly Gods are said to have flourished.

Berosus from the records of the Chaldaeans –––

<48r>

Berosus, compiling his accounta[53] from the records of the Chaldaeans, enumerates ten kings altogether (exactly like Moses) from the beginning of the world to the flood. The kings

according to the Chaldaeans According to Moses
Alorus Adam
Alaparus Seth
Anvelon Enos
Ammenon Cainon
Magalarus Mehaleel
Daorus Iared
Aedorachus Enoch
Amphis Methusalah
Otiartes Lamech
Xisuthrus Noah

Concerning their longevity b[54] Josephus thus briefly summarises the tradition of the Gentiles. Manetho, he says, who wrote the history of the Egyptians, and Berosus who wrote the Chaldaic history, and Mochus and Hestiaeus and the Egyptian Hieronymus, and those[Editorial Note 255] who described the affairs of the Phoenicians, all unanimously support my statements. Furthermore, c[55] Hesiod, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Acusilaus, as well as Ephorus and Nicolas tell us that those early men extended their lives to a thousand years. d[56] Diodorus has the same thing about the Egyptians: The Egyptians had a tradition, he says, that the most ancient Gods reigned for one thousand two hundred years and the later ones no less than three hundred years. And it is likely that the Septuagint translators raised the Mosaic numbers in order to reach as closely as possible the Egyptian numbers. But the numbers of Berosus have been infinitely inflated [reading in immensum aucti sunt.

e[57] Josephus says that all those who have written histories of the gentiles mention the flood and the Ark[Editorial Note 257]. Among them Berosus the Chaldaean writes as follows in the account that he gives of the flood. And they say that some part of this vessel is preserved to this day in Armenia on the mountain of the Corydaei, from which inhabitants of the place are accustomed to break off bits of the bitumen and wear them as talismans. Hieronymus the Egyptian also, who wrote the first history of the Phoenicians, makes mention of the same thing, and so do Mnaseas and several others. — was. Also f[58] Alexander Polyhistor describes the same thing as follows. After the death of Artus, under his son Xisulthrus[Editorial Note 259], there was a great flood, but he himself was saved, since Saturn had told him beforehand that it would occur, and that he should build an Ark, in which he should sail together with birds, reptiles and horses. Abydenus[Editorial Note 260] tells the same thing at greater length in his small book On the Syrian Goddess in these words. When Xisulthrus was king, and Saturn had predicted to him that there would be a massive amount of rain — the amount that came. In much the same way Plutarch says in his book On the Cleverness of Animals[Editorial Note 261]: The Mythologists tell us that a dove sent out from the ark brought reliable information to Deucalion of tempest by returning, and of clear weather when it flew way. In a similar way too it is evident that a certain general tradition was preserved for a very long time among the Gentiles of matters that were more distinctly passed down from Noah and the first men to Abraham, and from Abraham to Moses. Hence it is to be hoped that the history of the times which followed immediately after the flood can also be deduced from the traditions of the Gentiles not without a small element of truth.

Saturn. For it had become the custom of the Syrians (as Sanchoniatho tells us) to interpret Elus[Editorial Note 262] or El as Saturn; but El is God. Furthermore, Abydenus gives a more extensive account of these matters from Babylonian and Persian records, as follows. When Xisulthrus was reigning

Abydenus therefore goes on to say that the tower of Babylon was constructed by the first men, and thrown down by the winds, then adds that Men had had one and the same language down to this time, spoke many conflicting tongues thereafter, and subsequently war broke out between Saturn and the Titans.[Editorial Note 263] The whole length of the four first ages is occupied by these few events. For the second age takes its beginning from the overthrow of the Tower, the third and fourth from the two wars of the Titans. Ovid thus describes the ages.

<49v>

... of all their attainments, says Josephus, ... is quite recent[Editorial Note 264] — unknown. Therefore as the use of letters was that much older among the Chaldaeans, Egyptians and Phoenicians than among the Greeks, so the memory of things is older among those peoples; so that if it were possible to separate the scattered traditions of those peoples from the fictions of the Greeks and to compare them with each other, I would hope that the history of the times which immediately followed the flood could be written with some element of truth.

The Romans were of opinion that Saturn was the father of truth, and as far as the stories went, that he was very just. He was so very just that – So too the Mythologists tell us that in the reign of Janus all men's homes were protected by religion and sanctity. Numa offered great honours to Janus since he was a civil man who was more dedicated to cultivating the land than to making war. He won over the Italians, who had a savage and unjust character, to take up a different manner of life, and he settled them down by means of agriculture and education in civil life.

Therefore the fours sons of Cham – Misraim, Phut, Canaan and Chus (gen. 10) –, who had their seats in Egypt, Libya, Phoenicia and Arabia, correspond to Osiris, Antaeus, Busiris and Hercules. For Hercules is asserted by all men to be the son of Jupiter, and thus will occupy the fourth spot. We are told that he was the leader of the army for Osiris, when a little later he made war on Typho on behalf of the Egyptians. When Typho occupied the throne, the Egyptians were broken up and scattered, until Hercules came to their aid. And for this reason Hercules obtained a seat with his own people outside of Egypt.

Therefore it must be recognised that there was more than one Hercules, likewise more than one Jupiter and more than one Saturn. For after the Egyptians had elevated their ancestors to the stars, they applied the genealogy of the Gods which had been taken from them to their own ancestors also. Xenophon explains this in his Aequivoca as follows — they used, and in such a way that the children of Cham – Neptune, Pluto, and Venus - were said to be children of Saturn, and his grandchildren Mercury, Apollo and Diana were said to be children of Jupiter. And since Belus was Jupiter among the Assyrians, Chus was Saturn, and Cham was Caelum or Uranus, and Noah was Hypsuranius. And this third belief, although more recent than the others, nevertheless spread with the cult of Jupiter Belus through the whole of the east, and the Phoenicians and Syrians took it up, and propagated it throughout the Mediterranean sea, as I gather from Sanchoniatho and the philosophy of the Phrygians and of the Atlantians. And Sanchoniatho

Surveying the generations of the gods from the beginning of the world, and giving the names of two or three Gods for each generation, he places Ager and Agricola in the tenth generation, and says that in the books of the ancients he is called the greatest of the Gods in an altogether singular paean, and the whole race of Farmers and Hunters took their origin from these two. And that they left sons Amynus and Magnus — they named.

<50r>

Berosus, composing his history from the records of the Chaldaeans, a[59] enumerates altogether ten kings altogether (exactly like Moses) from the beginning of the World down to the flood. These kings

According to the Chaldaeans According to Moses
Alorus Adam
Alaparus Seth
Amelon Enos
Ammenon Cainon
Megalarus Mehaleel
Daorus Iared
Aedorachus Enoch
Amphis Methusalah
Oliartes Lamech
Xisuttirus Noach

Concerning[Editorial Note 265] their longevity b[60] Josephus thus briefly summarises the tradition of the Gentiles. Manetho, he says, who wrote the history of the Egyptians, and Besorus who wrote the Chaldaic history, and Mochus and Hestiaeus and Hieronymus the Egyptian, and those who described the affairs of the Phoenicians, all unanimously support my statements. Furthermore, c[61] Hesiod, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Acusilaus, Ephorus too and Nicolaus tell us that those early men extended their lives to a thousand years. d[62] Diodorus has the same thing about Egyptians: The Egyptians had a tradition, he says, that the most ancient Gods reigned for one thousand two hundred years and the later ones no less than three hundred years. And it is likely that the Septuagint translators raised the Mosaic numbers in order to reach as closely as possible the Egyptian numbers. From the beginning of the world to the flood Berosus counts 120 sari, and ... a sarus, etc[Editorial Note 267].

e[63]Josephus says[Editorial Note 268] that all those who have written histories of the foreign peoples mention the flood and the Ark. Among them Berosus the Chaldaean writes as follows in the account that he gives of the flood. They say that some part of this vessel is preserved to this day in Armenia by the mountain of the Cordyaei, from which some inhabitants of the place are accustomed to wear bits of bitumen scraped from it as a talisman of the same thing/man he wrote the history of the Phoenicians [Editorial Note 269] and likewise {and likewise Mnaseas and several others}. To these add Nicolas of Damascus[Editorial Note 270] who has this: There is above Minyas {a great mountain in Armenia which} they call Baris, {to which, as the story goes, many fled for refuge at the time of the deluge and were saved; and a certain man borne on an ark landed on top of the mountain, and the remains of the timbers were preserved for a long time}. But {illeg} Polyhistor {desc}ribes the same thing: After the death of Artus, under his son Xisulthrus, there was a great flood, but he himself was saved, since Saturn had told him beforehand that it would occur, and that he should build an Ark, in which he should sail together with birds, reptiles and horses[Editorial Note 271]. Here Saturn is {co}rruptly written <51r> for God. For in Chaldaean Saturn is called Ilus or El, as is clear from Sanchoniatho. It also signifies El, and he was the God who foretold the flood. Furthermore a[64] Abydenus explains the same things at greater length from the records of the Babylonians and Persians. When [Editorial Note 272] Sisithrus was king and Saturn predicted to him that there would be a massive downpour of rain on the fifteenth day of the month Desius, and ordered that everything that was connected with books should be hidden and put away at Heliopolis in the country of the Sippari. In obedience to the command of God, he immediately set off to sail towards Armenia, and during this voyage he was overtaken by the sudden fulfilment of the prediction. But on the third day when the storm had begun to abate, he sent out birds to explore, in case they might see land that had emerged anywhere and was standing up above the waves. And when all they found was a measureless extent of water, and nowhere at all appeared where they might take reguge, they flew back again to Sisithrus, and others after them did the same. But when he did the same a third time, and his prayers were answered (for the birds returned with their wings covered in mud), he was immediately removed by the power of the Gods from the society and eyes of men; but the vessel came to land in Armenia, and became a source of amulets for the natives which they made from its beams and wore suspended from their necks. In much the same way Plutarch says in his book, On the Intelligence of Animals: Mythologists tell us that a dove sent out from the ark brought back to Deucalion sure information of storm by returning, and of clear weather by flying away. Lucian gives a similar description of the flood in his little book, On the Syrian Goddess[Editorial Note 273]. From all of this it is clear that a certain common tradition of these things, which had been passed down in a clearer form from Noah and the first men to Abraham, and from Abraham to Moses, was preserved for a very long time among the Gentiles too. Of all their attainments attention to writing history, says Josephus[Editorial Note 274], is quite recent among the Greeks. As the Greeks themselves admit, the Egyptians, the Chaldaeans and the Phoenicians, have a very ancient and very stable record of their history. For they all inhabit lands which are not at all subject to the ravages of the climate, and they have taken great care that none of the events that {happened} among {them} should be forgotten but should be preserved in public records by their wisest men. By contrast a {thousand} {disas}ters {have afflicted}[Editorial Note 275] the region of Greece, which wiped out the memory of things, and as they were always[Editorial Note 276] {const}ructing new ways of life, they believed that they were the first of all. They should know that they learned to recognise the nature of letters late and with difficulty.[Editorial Note 277] For those who believe that they had a very early familiarity with them, boast that they learned them from the Phoenicians and Cadmus. But not even from that period will anyone be able to prove that a record has been preserved, either in Temples or on public monuments, <52r> since even about the events at Troy, where the war was fought for so many years, there has been a great deal of subsequent argument and controversy as to whether they made use of letters in their account of it, and the true view that has prevailed is that the use of today's letters was unknown to them, etc. Therefore as the antiquity of the use of letters was greater among Chaldaeans, Egyptians and Phoenicians than among the Greeks, the memory of things which those peoples retained was much more ancient. So that if it were possible to distinguish their scattered traditions from the fictions of the Greeks, and compare them with each other, I would hope that the history of the times that immediately followed the flood, could be written up with some degree of truth.

Abydenus a[65] therefore goes on to say that the tower of Babylon was built by the first men and thrown down by the winds, then adds that Men who had had one and the same language down to this time, afterwards spoke with many conflicting voices, and later a war broke out between Saturn and the Titans. And the whole period of the four first ages is occupied by these few things. For the second age takes its beginning from the overthrow of the Tower, the third and fourth from the two wars of the Titans. Ovid thus describes the ages.

The golden age —

<53r>

Ovid describes it as follows:[Editorial Note 278]

The golden age came first, which, without compulsion, without law, of its own accord, kept faith, and did right.

Nations securely passed the years in gentle ease. The earth herself without compulsion, untouched by hoe or plowshare, of herself gave all things needful.

After Saturn had been banished to the dark land of death, and the world was under the sway of Jupiter, the silver race came in, etc.

Then men first sought the shelter of houses.

Then first seeds of grain were planted in long furrows, and bullocks groaned beneath the heavy yoke.

Next after this, and third in order, came the bronze race, of fiercer disposition, readier to fly to dreadful arms, and yet not heinously criminal. The age of hard iron came last.

Virgil[Editorial Note 279] has similar words about the golden age:

Before the reign of Jupiter no farmers subjugated the land

even to mark possession of the plain or to apportion it by boundaries was sacrilege

men sought gains for the common good

and earth of her own accord gave her gifts more freely when none demanded them.

Thus the golden age begins with the human race.

Ὡς ὁμόθεν γεγάασι θεοὶ etc.

How Gods and mortal men came about together,

Golden was the first race. Hesiod[Editorial Note 280].

And the silver age begins with the division of the earth and the discovery of corn. In the bronze age wars were first waged, as Hesiod also sang:

And father Jupiter made a third, a bronze race of variously speaking men

altogether different from the silver

made from ash-trees, tempestuous and tough

whose passion was the painful deeds of war and acts of violence.

This age was earlier than the Assyrian empire. For Africans and Egyptians, says Hyginus[Editorial Note 281], at first fought with clubs, later Belus son of Neptune, made war with the sword. Virgil adds some more about this age.

The mariner then grouped and named the stars

the Pleiades and the Hyades and the clear [star] of Lycaon[Editorial Note 282]

{That is when it was discovered} how to catch wild animals with traps and snare with lime

<53v>

Chapter 3
That Noah is Saturn, and that Cham is Jupiter Hammon
and that the sons of Cham with his grandsons are the other Gods and Giants who fought with the Gods in Egypt in the third age: and how Cham
came down with his people into Egypt and divided the region between his sons.

Therefore since the golden age is the first of the eras, Saturn, who was ruling at that time, must be Noah, and his son Jupiter in the next age must be Noah's son Cham, and therefore Jupiter's sons – Hercules, Osiris, Typhon and Vulcan – must be sought among the sons of Cham. I am now speaking about the Egyptian Gods. For the Chaldaeans, the Assyrians and the Greeks worshipped various different men under the names of the same Gods, adapting them to their own nations. For since they said that Jehovah, whom the Greeks called Ιαω, the Latins father Iaon or Jupiter, was the name of the supreme God —— etc. See the sixth folio page on from here, —— brother of Misraim. Therefore <54v> the first Belus or the most ancient Jupiter, i. e., the Egyptian one, is Cham, the father of Chus, Mizraim and Canaan, and therefore Saturn is Noah. It is in accordance with this that ✝[66] Diodorus, from the evidence of a pillar in Egypt, tells us that Isis and Osiris are children of a junior Saturn, Symbol (inverted E) in text < insertion from lower down f 54v > Symbol (inverted E) in text and ✝[67] elsewhere he tells us that they are children of Jupiter; consequently Jupiter, the father of Osiris, otherwise known as Cham, is the same as the junior Saturn, i.e., the Chaldaean one. For the Chaldaeans who conquered Egypt, as we have said, made the junior Saturn out of Jupiter. < text from f 54v resumes >

That Saturn is Noah, Bochart has shown in sufficient detail. It is clear that he is also Janus, since the Latins had the tradition that he was contemporary with Saturn, making two men out of the two names of a single man (as they often did).

And that Saturn properly so called is the same as Noah, Bochart has explained at sufficient length in his Sacred Geography. And it is clear that both are the same as Janus; for[Editorial Note 283]

<54r>

Then it was discovered also how to surround large coverts with dogs

and one man beats a broad stream with his casting-net

in search of the depths, while another trawls

through the open sea his dripping lines[Editorial Note 284].

Therefore in this third age Mercury marked out the constellations and gave names to the Planets, and Nimrod and his Companions engaged in the hunting of wild beasts. Vulcan likewise invented boats and the fishing line and nets, as we learn from Sanchoniatho. And then at last wars fought with the sword gave rise to the fourth age

[Editorial Note 285]The age of hard iron came last

Immediately every evil burst out in this age of baser ore

and the cursed love of gain

And now destructive iron had arrived, and gold more destructive than iron

Then came war, which makes use of both to fight, and brandishes clashing weapons in its bloody hands.

Men lived on plunder. Guest was not safe from host.

Astraea abandoned the earth, the last of the heavenly ones to go.

Astraea is Isis, a very just woman and a Legislator of the Egyptians. When she was at the beginning queen of the Assyrians, she was seized with a kind of madness after the death of her Orus and Bubastis, a[68] and is said to have suddenly vanished from the sight of men. You will understand therefore that the ages are so distinguished from each other that a new age always begins with new kings and new governments. As long as all men lived under the government of Noah in Babylonia, the golden age endured. With the division of the earth and the government of Cham in Egypt the silver age begins. When the sons of Cham subsequently set off for the different lands which were granted to them by their father and established new kingdoms separately, then began the age of bronze. In the fourth stage, Belus, the grandson of Cham, founded the government of the Assyrian Shepherds by violence and bloodshed.

– the first who invented dreadful swords

wild and truly made of iron was that man. Tibullus, Elegies, 1.10.[Editorial Note 286]        Therefore[Editorial Note 287] since the golden age is the first of the eras, Saturn, who reigned at that time, must be Noah. Bochart has explained this adequately in his Sacred Geography. The same is also true of Janus, since the Latins make him contemporary with Saturn. Saturn was made the god of time because of his extreme longevity. In the Orphic writings he is also said to be 'father of all'[Editorial Note 288] and 'first begetter'[Editorial Note 289] and his wife <55r> Rhea is 'Mother of gods and of mortal men'[Editorial Note 290]; and he was depicted by a[69] the Egyptians with eyes before and behind as if he had seen things both {before the flood and} after it. Janus too was God b[70] of the year and of time, and he is called by Septimius[Editorial Note 292] in Terentianus Maurus,[Editorial Note 293] the source and origin of the Gods, and he was portrayed with a double face. All of this can be understood only of Noah, a man long-lived beyond all men, and father of all mortals. Saturn and Rhea, with the rest of the c Gods who were their contemporaries, are said by Philosophers and Poets to have risen from Ocean. Hence also the Egyptians portrayed their Gods in a Ship upon the waters. And a coin was once struck in Italy d[71] e with the double face of Janus on one side and the image of a ship on the other[Editorial Note 294]. These things clearly relate to the flood. As Noah was the first Farmer, planted a vineyard, and was inebriated, so e[72] Saturn was the very first to teach agriculture (hence he was given a reaping-hook)[Editorial Note 295] and he was in charge of drunkenness (hence the Saturnalia). And equally Janus [73] e reigned before crops were known,[Editorial Note 296] and he was called Consivius from 'conserendo' ('sowing together'), and gave his name to wine: יינ, jain, ὀινος vinum. Hence too a part of Italy was once called Oenotria, and l[74] the native inhabitants were known as Oenotri. ‡ < insertion from f 54v > The Chaones are Oenotrians by race, according to Aristotle 7. de R{e} P{ublica},[Editorial Note 298] so called from Chiun or Chewan, who t[75] is Saturn for the Eastern peoples, and the star of Saturn. In the Etymologicum Magnum it is recorded that in the dialect of the Egyptians Hercules was called Chon and a after he conquered, the Italians were thereafter called Chones. Here the Egyptian theology is confused with that of the Syrians. For Saturn is Syrian. The Egyptian theology is confused here with that of the Syrians[Editorial Note 299]. For Saturn is to the Syrians what Hercules is to the Egyptians, as will soon be clear. The ancients often formed names by transposing letters. Whether 'Noah' developed into Chaon or Chiun in this way, I simply do not know. < text from f 55r resumes > To Noah also relates the fact that m[76] the Romans thought Saturn was the father of truth, m[77] and that the legends told that he was very just. g[78] He was so very just that no one was a slave under his rule, nor did anyone possess private property and h[79] he brought his contemporaries out of their rude way of life to a more civilized manner of living, and for this reason he won great honours; and he traveled through many parts of the world [this was in the silver and bronze ages], and he introduced all men to justice and simplicity of heart .* < insertion from f 54v > * So too i[80] The mythologists tell us that under the rule of Janus all men's Homes were guarded by religion and sanctity; and k[81] Numa, says Plutarch, offered great honours to Janus since he was a civil man who was more dedicated to cultivating the land than to making war. He won over the Italians, who had a savage and unjust character, to take up a different manner of life, and he settled them downby means of agriculture and education in civil life. < text from f 55r resumes > So too i[82][Editorial Note 306] The mythologists tell that under the rule of Janus all men's Homes were guarded by religion and sanctity. You may read more about Saturn in Bochart.

Jupiter, who reigned in the silver age, since he is son of Saturn and is held in the greatest honour by the Egyptians and is normally called Jupiter Hammon, will necessarily be their father Chamus. Herodotus in Euterpe:[Editorial Note 307] the Egyptians call Jupiter Ἁμμουν. Plutarch in his Isis:[Editorial Note 308] very many people think that the proper name among the Egyptians for what we call Hammon is ἁμουν[Editorial Note 309]. Hesychius[Editorial Note 310] : Ἁμμους ὁ Ζεὺς, Ἀρισοτέλει[Editorial Note 311]: Hammus is Zeus, according to Aristotle. Plato discussing Thoth in his Phaedrus says: At that time Thamus was the king of all Egypt ✝[83] in the great city of the Upper region which the Greeks call Egyptian Thebes, and the God himself they call Hammon[Editorial Note 312]. Him the Greeks at some time[Editorial Note 313]

<56r>

[Editorial Note 314]singular is Masor. But once human names were given to the Stars and the Elements, the consequence was that the achievements of these men were written up under the names of Stars, as for example that Saturn (understand Noah) had three sons, Jupiter the youngest, Neptune and Pluto, i.e., Cham the youngest (Genesis 9.23), Japheth, and Shem. Also that Saturn (as the Orphics say) was 'father of all'[Editorial Note 315] and 'first begetter'[Editorial Note 316] and his wife Rhea was 'Mother of gods and of mortal men'[Editorial Note 317]; that he had eyes before and behind (as he was portrayed by the Egyptians); and that the Gods sprang from Ocean. Hence the Egyptians depicted their Gods in a Ship on the waters, and the symbol of Saturn among the Italians was a ship. All of this seems to point to the flood. Also for example, that Saturn was the first to teach agriculture (hence given a reaping-hook), and that he was in charge of drunkenness (whence the Saturnalia), and that he forbade by law that anyone should see the Gods naked with impunity (obviously because of the impiety of Cham); and that in the Saturnalia the Masters served the slaves, evidently in memory of the curse put upon Cham. That he traversed many parts of the world, and brought all men to justice and a more civilised manner of life. And that he was so very just that no one was a slave during his reign, nor did anyone have private property. That he lived in the first and happiest of all ages, which was therefore called the golden age. Under his government there was the most profound peace, and no labour or distress. All things were in common and undivided. The earth was not yet demarcated by boundaries. That at the end he divided the whole world between his three sons, and that he gave to Jupiter Caelum {Sky}, who is Cham, the region nearest the burning Sun, and he gave the Sea to Neptune, i.e., he gave to Japhet the islands and the maritime regions which are called by the Easterners the Islands of the sea, and he gave to Pluto the Earth which abounds in riches, i.e., to Shem he gave Asia, a fertile land that extends far and wide. And that Jupiter expelled his father from the kingship, which was of course by means of his grandson. To the same effect, in describing the Origins of the Africans, Diodorus says that <57r> Nimrod (who is himself also Jupiter Belus and Baal-Sanen or Lord of the Heavens) his own[Editorial Note 318]. You may see all of this argued at length in Bochart. It is from beginnings like this that the Theology of the Stars arose, when other Nations learned from the example of the Egyptians, and they too in the end transferred the names of their Heroes to the stars. And after the superstition of Astrology had conferred a certain power and divinity on the stars, souls were attributed to them, by which they might gain a knowledge of human affairs and govern all things at their will. Hence Plotinus: By means of its soul, he says, this world becomes God. But the Sun too is a God because he is ensouled, and so too are the other stars[Editorial Note 319]. And as the worship of such Gods gradually grew because of beliefs of this kind, so too at the same time did the veneration for the men whose names were attached to them, until at last these too were made to be share in divine honours. In addition,[Editorial Note 320] the Egyptians depicted their Gods according to their various characteristics, in the form of various animals, for example, the sun and Vulcan as scarab beetles, the Sun also by a Hawk, the Moon by a Cat and the Ibis bird, Saturn a man with eyes before and behind, Jupiter by a man with ram's horns because of his lust, Mars and Venus by two Crows male and female because of their mutual love, Mercury by a Dog and a Cynocephalus because of his cleverness, and because of her sublimity Minerva was represented by a flying vulture; the Earth was represented by Jupiter[Editorial Note 321] and Water by a Serpent and the Monster Typho, and this last was represented by a Hippopotamus. And the river Nile was dedicated to Osiris, while the Land of Egypt was dedicated to Isis. Hence when the Nile floods Egypt, they used to say that Osiris was uniting with Isis. And from Symbols of this kind there finally arose a veneration of Beasts and Images. On all of this Aristotle says[Editorial Note 322]: There is a tradition from very ancient times that the Stars are Gods, and that Deity contains all things. All the other mythical material has been added to convince the common people, and to strengthen the laws, and for the ordinary purposes of life, as when these gods are said to take on a human form or be like other animals; and other things are added along the same lines. <58r> they call Diospolis, i.e. the city of Jupiter Hammon. The city < insertion from f 55v > The city which the Prophets call Noa Ammon (Nahum 3.8) and Hamon No or Ha{mon}de No[Editorial Note 323] (Ezekiel 30.15, Jeremiah 46.35) the Septuagint translates as Diospolis. But it is disputed which Diospolis it is, as there is more than one Diospolis in Egypt. Whether No or Noe signifies the people here, as some claim, or is the proper name of a city derived from the father of Cham, the Critics must decide. Certainly it is a proper name in Ezekiel 30.14, 15, 16. < text from f 58r resumes > Furthermore they tell us that this God was worshipped through all the lands given to Cham, and a[84] various places throughout Africa and Arabia took their names from Cham; the ancient name of the whole of Africa was b[85] Ammonia, and the common God of those Peoples was Hammon. Lucan bk. 9

Although for the Ethiopians and the wealthy people of Arabia

and the Indians there is only one god Jupiter Ammon[Editorial Note 325].

These Indians are a people of Asia between the Red Sea and the river Nile in the region of Arabia Felix, and Hammon is formed from Ham in the same way as Babylon from Babel, Canaan from Cana, Chusan or Susan from Chua, Zidon from Zaid, Python and Phaeton from Phut. In Eastern proper names ending in n, we will very often get to the earliest name by removing the final syllable.

When the world was divided between the sons of Noah, conceive that Cham came with his people from Babylonia to Egypt, a land preferable to all the others that had fallen to his lot because of its fertile soil. For just as Plato says that he reigned in Egypt, so Egypt was once called Chami after Cham or f[86] Chemia and in g[87] holy scripture the land Cham and the habitation Cham < insertion from f 55v > But also Isidore writes that right down to his time Egypt was called Cham in the Egyptian language; see Kircher,[Editorial Note 327] prodrom. Sopt. p. 293. < text from f 58r resumes > And traces of the name Cham occur more often in Egypt than in other parts; as in the city of No-Ammon, in the nomes of Chemmis, Prochemmis, Psittachemmis, in a[88] a shrine of Hammon situated on Meroe, an island in the Nile, in the island of b[89] Chemnis, in a city called Chemnis in the c[90] Thebaid, and in the d[91] district of Chemmis. It was also in Egypt that Mercury lived, whose counsel and services, they declare, Jupiter often made use of. There too the plough and cultivated crops are said to have been first developed by Osiris and Isis, since before that they lived only from the spontaneous fruits of the earth and whatever the trees and vines bore. Now we said that crops were invented in the silver age, and therefore it occurred under the government of Cham. Also the first war after the silver age was fought in Egypt, and it was between the sons of Cham because of the nourishment of their father, as will soon be told[Editorial Note 330]. Therefore just as Noah, so long as the golden age lasted, ruled all his people as the father of a family[Editorial Note 331], then divided the whole world between his three sons, so during the age of silver Cham governed all his people who were living with him in Egypt, and then distributed the third of the world that had been granted to him among his four sons. And they lived at this time in a city of upper Egypt which they had founded, called Egyptian Thebes by the Greeks, as we have already reported from Plato. For lower Egypt because of the Nile floods and its surrounding mouths was unsuitable and almost inaccessible to the earliest inhabitants who lacked the skills to deal with it. {But} Thebes, being situated on a higher elevation but {on} the Arabian side of the Nile, offered <59r> access, even for boats[Editorial Note 332]. In Egyptian this city was called No Ammon, in Greek Διο{σπ}ολις after Jupiter Ammon, under whose rule {lived} the son who killed Typho[Editorial Note 333] in the bronze age before the war of the Gods, and therefore the city appears to be the most ancient of all and founded in the silver age, at the time when men first sought the shelter of houses[Editorial Note 334].

b[92] It was founded on the east bank of the Nile, but later it also expanded to the west bank. It was the capital of the Thebaid, and c[93] eventually became the metropolis of the whole of Egypt, and turned into the most populous city of all, superior even to Babylon itself. It was here therefore that Cham ruled the whole of Egypt (as Plato writes), i.e., his own family, and subsequently distributed all the lands granted to him in the four directions of the winds to his four sons. For he gave the Arabian side of Egypt to his first-born son, Chus, as well as the whole of the further part of Arabia to the east; to his second son, Mizraim, the Thebaid and the bordering area of Ethiopia, together with all the further regions to the south; to his third son, Phut, he gave the Libyan part of Egypt as well as Libya and the whole of the further part of Africa to the west, and to his youngest, Canaan, he gave lower Egypt to the west, and to his youngest son Canaan[Editorial Note 336] he gave lower Egypt and Phoenicia lying to the North. For Canaan first reigned in lower Egypt between the mouths of the Nile, as will be shown later. And hence it will be clear that the ancient eastern languages, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaic, Hebrew and Ethiopian, are simply different dialects of the old Egyptian language. I add Chaldaic and Syriac to the others, because the Arabian Belus led out a colony of Chaldaeans from Egypt into Babylonia and founded a kingdom there.

Diodorus confirms that the kingdom of Jupiter was divided between the sons of Cham, saying: When Osiris had settled the affairs of Egypt <60r> and placed the administration of the whole kingdom in the hands of his wife Isis he gave her Mercury as counselor because he excelled all the rest in prudence. And he appointed Hercules general of the empire which he left who was closely related to him and admired by all men for his courage and physical strength, and he appointed Busiris as governor of the areas that lie toward Phoenicia and the maritime districts, and Antaeus as governor of [western] Ethiopia and Libya. Then he himself made a journey [into southern Ethiopia where it shares a border with the Thebaid] accompanied by his brother [or rather by his son] whom the Greeks call Apollo[Editorial Note 337]. # But < insertion from f 59v > # But the Egyptians who were sprung from Osiris and were keen to magnify his achievements, boastfully attribute the whole of Cham's empire here to Osiris. Osiris never had an empire over all these lands. He had died before his father Cham, and therefore this division of lands was made in the reign of Cham between his sons. For everyone agrees that both Hercules and Osiris are sons of Jupiter, and Antaeus and Busiris are recognised as Phut and Canaan from the lands granted to them to the west. When the kingdom of Cham was divided between his sons, we are to conceive that each one led out colonies to the lands granted to him, and that is the reason why Osiris undertook his journey into Ethiopia, so celebrated by the ancients, in company with his son Apollo. For Apollo here is the Egyptian Horus, and Horus was not the brother but the son of Osiris, as Diodorus says in the words that follow, and other writers also agree. Busiris going down into the maritime parts of Egypt, settled between the mouths of the Nile in the nome of Busiris, where he founded the city of Busiris, as I seem to infer from the names; then being driven out by Hercules he remained with his people in Phoenicia and the islands in the Mediterranean sea. After the War of the Gods, Antaeus set out to go as far as possible to the west, and settled in Mauritania. Hercules was appointed general of the Egyptians, not in the first division of lands, but later, during the war of the gods with the giants. He is set over the empire which Osiris relinquished, that is, the best and most choice part of Egypt, where down to this time Cham had been settled with his people. For he was the oldest son, and by that right the heir of the best portion. Hence it is likely that the great island in the Nile which lies in the middle of Egypt above the city of Memphis, and is called the nome of Heracleopolites, together with the regions which stretch from there to the east, fell to his lot. For that island is the most fertile of the regions and contains Heracleopolis which was named after its founder Heracles, if I am not mistaken. The prefecture of Heracleopolis, which is on a large island, excels all the rest (says Strabo, bk. 17)[Editorial Note 338] both in appearance and productivity and in stocks. For it alone produces full-size olive trees and fruit trees. – And it produces not a little wine, also corn, beans and other seed-crops of all kinds. A little above it in the Hermopolitan nome was neighbouring Chussa (Χυσαι, which is certainly from Chus < text from f 60r resumes >

When the sons of Cham separated from each other, there followed soon between them that very celebrated {illeg} of which Hyginus[Editorial Note 339] <60v> had. ‡ < insertion from lower down f 60v > had. ‡ It is because of his seat here that Hercules a[94] is thought to have been born on the Nile, and b[95] to have been called Ogmius. Ogmius comes from c[96] Oceanus, the ancient name of the Nile. From his seat on the Nile Hercules seems to have led out colonies to the regions on the borders of Egypt and Arabia. {For Diodorus writes that the assertion of the Egyptians agrees with}[Editorial Note 342] the story which was widespread among the Greeks from very early times, that Hercules cleared the land of wild beasts. – For in accord with this is the fact that Hercules cared for Egypt as his native country, and that he cleared it of monstrous animals before handing it over to the colonising farmers. So Diodorus[Editorial Note 343]. And to clear Arabia of monstrous animals was a task well worthy of Hercules.

When the sons of Cham from each other — < text from f 60v resumes > And from these places Hercules seems to have led out colonies to the regions on the borders of Egypt and Arabia. For Diodorus writes (bk. 1)[Editorial Note 344] that the assertion of the Egyptians agrees with Hercules's reputation widespread among the Greeks from earliest times, for having cleared the land of wild Beasts. –In accord with this is the fact that Hercules cared for Egypt as his native country, and that he cleared it of monstrous animals before handing it over to the farmers. So Diodorus. And to clear Arabia of monstrous animals was a task well worthy of Hercules.

<61r>

Fable 274[Editorial Note 345] runs as follows: The Africans, he says, and the Egyptians fought at first with clubs; later Belus, son of Neptune, waged war with swords; that is why it is called war.[Editorial Note 346] Fable 275. Since this Egyptian war is the most ancient of all and was waged in the very age of the Gods, it is also recorded in many different ways by the Ancients. For sometimes it is called the war of Jupiter and the rest of the Gods against the Giants, sometimes the struggle of Apollo with the serpent Pytho or of Hercules with the monster Typho, and at other times the wrestling-match of Hercules with the giants Antaeus and Atlas. For Pytho, Typho, Antaeus and Atlas are simply different names for one and the same father and leader of the Africans, Phut, as will be proved in what follows. But this was the origin of the war.

Osiris had raped either the wife of his brother Atlas or, more likely, Atlas's daughter, Maia (Plutarch, On Isis, Diodorus, bk. 1, Herodotus, bk. 2), and had fathered a son on her, he had raped her and had fathered a son, Anubis. Some years later when Osiris had returned from Ethiopia and had already been reigning for twenty eight years, on the 17th day of the month Althyr, Atlas, or Typho, shut up his brother in a chest[Editorial Note 347] after receiving him at a banquet and hurls him into the river Nile. Isis, the wife of the dead man, goes wandering in search of her husband, finds the chest carried down to the sea through the Tanaitic mouth of the Nile and washed up on the seashore, and having found it, she carries it away and buries it in a field at night. Typho comes by chance upon this very chest, cuts the body into many parts, and with the help of seventy two of his followers makes an attempt upon the kingship of Egypt. Isis gathers up the scattered parts and buries them – and entrusts her children Orus and Bubastis to her sister Latona. She is the Venus of the early peoples. The Egyptians flee, and Latona withdraws with her youngsters to the island in the Nile called                     . Typho wanders over the whole of Egypt in search of them. Jupiter, on the advice[Editorial Note 348] of Minerva, summons Hercules with his sons[Editorial Note 349] to come to the aid of the Egyptians. A battle with clubs of several days duration takes place; it takes place by the river Nile near the town of Antaea in the part of Arabia which lies between the Red Sea and the Nile. Typho and his forces are overcome, and he is handed over in bonds to Isis. Isis assumes the kingship with her son Orus. Isis sends Typho away. Again and yet again there is fighting. d[97] Hercules being put into bonds by the sons of Typho, Otus and Ephialtes, is stealthily liberated by Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, after thirteen months. (Typho's wife had revealed the place where he was held in bonds). Mercury then composes all the quarrels, and that is why he brought serpents who were fighting with each other to {peace} by throwing his caduceus among them, and it is in memory of this that he bears snakes on his caduceus. Then Hercules, as agreed, escorts Typho to the farthest parts of Africa and after placing columns there as a memorial to the action returns[Editorial Note 351]

Diodorus was thinking of this war (bk. 3) when in speaking of the inhabitants of the interior of Africa, he adds: The story is that at one time they made an invasion into Egypt and deprived the inhabitants of a great part of their land: evidently by the flight of the Egyptians when they were attacked by Typho. Antoninus Liberalis[Editorial Note 352] sets this out more fully from Nicander as follows: Typho was a son of Earth, a daimon[Editorial Note 353] of immense strength[Editorial Note 354], of monstrous shape; for many heads sprouted from him and many {hands and} wings, and massive serpent coils from his thighs. – <62r> He emitted all kinds of sounds; and no one could withstand his strength. This Typho aspired to the empire of Jupiter, and when he made his attack, none of the Gods stood against him, but they all fled into Egypt, leaving only Minerva and Jupiter behind. Typho immediately pursued the Gods. But they used their cunning, and escaped him by taking on the forms of animals: Apollo as a Hawk, Mercury as an Ibis, Mars as a scaly fish, Diana as a Nile fish, Bacchus as a goat, Hercules as a Hinny, Mulciber as an ox, Latona as a shrew-mouse, and others into whatever shapes they chose. When Jupiter struck Typho with his thunderbolt, Typho, on fire, concealed himself in the sea, and extinguished the fire. And Jupiter did not release him but hurled Etna upon him, the highest of mountains. Typho here is understood as Phut and the political body which consisted of all his fellow-fighters; this is why he is said to be a monster of many heads and many hands. Pindar describes him in his First Pythian[Editorial Note 355]. Hyginus, fable 152, (and Apollodorus, bk. 1, calls him son of Tartarus (i.e., of the sea) and of the earth)[Editorial Note 356], of monstrous size and portentous appearance, who had a hundred snake's heads springing from his shoulders which emitted a hissing sound, and on his legs massive coils of vipers. Others call him Briareus, who had a hundred hands and fifty heads. You can see that Briareus is the same as Typho from Callimachus's Hymn to Delos, line 141, where Briareus rather than Typho is said to lie beneath Mt. Etna, and to stir up flames when he turns over. On this passage of Callimachus the scholiast says: some speak of Briareus turning over, others of Typho and others of Enceladus[Editorial Note 357]. Furthermore, when the Giants rebel against heaven and Typho attempts to seize the kingdom of Jupiter, and the terrified Gods flee from there into Egypt, nothing more is to be understood than that Phut attempted to seize dominion over Egypt and that the Egyptians fled from their familiar haunts and their royal city into unknown parts of Egypt. For heaven is normally used by myth-writers and Prophets for Kingship and dominion. And the thunderbolt with which Jupiter struck down Typho is war. For fire and thunderbolt are used everywhere in the Prophets for war, and the Cyclopes and their father Vulcan who forged the thunderbolts for Jupiter are the first ironsmiths who made swords and instruments of war for <63r> Jupiter Belus. And Typho is said to have plunged into the sea and extinguished the flames, because he brought an end to the war by departing through the Mediterranean sea all the way to the Ocean, on whose shore he settled by the pillars[Editorial Note 358] of Hercules. And it is all the same whether people write that it was Typho, or, as others do, that it was the Giants, who were thrown into Tartarus. For by Tartarus the ancients meant the sea. Hence Typho is construed as God of the sea (which is what the Latins call Neptune) and son of Tartarus. For a[98] Plutarch tells us that the Egyptians say that Typho is the sea and therefore the priests abominate the sea and refer to salt as the spit of Typho; they do not address ships' captains, since they are familiar with the sea and make their living from it; this is also the main reason why they are averse to fish; when they want to depict hatred, they portray a b[99] fish; and they call the furthest parts of the land that border the sea, Typho's wife. Furthermore Neptune is sometimes used for Typho, as when c[100] Lucian says that Corinth, which has a good stock of myths, tells of the battle of the Sun and Neptune[Editorial Note 359]; for this is Apollo's celebrated battle with the serpent who is indifferently called Pytho and Typho. So too Agatharcides in Photius, in describing the flight of the Gods and the war with the Giants, puts Neptune for Typho. They fable, he says[Editorial Note 360], that Minerva, great as she is, concealed herself in the tiny body of a swallow, and the majesty of Jupiter migrated into the form of a swan, and the beauty of Ceres adopted the ugliest disguise. And that Jupiter who is supposed to be the greatest, suffered a treacherous attack from his closest relative, his wife's own brother, and was saved by his greatest enemies, I mean the Titans, who emerged from bonds and the nether darkness and their imprisonment there, and after they had done all they could for him by putting Neptune to flight, withdrew voluntarily back again to Tartarus. Then that Venus was wounded by a human hand and that Mars was held in chains by Otus and Ephialtes [sons of Neptune], and that Dis was struck with arrows by Hercules in his own kingdom and suffered the most terrible pains. The Titans were children of Jupiter Ammon by his wife Titaea, and they are sometimes taken for Neptune and his children, and are very often taken (as in this passage) for Mars or Hercules and his children. They are said to have been hateful to Zeus because of the wars which they later waged against the Egyptians, striking Dis, that is Mizraim or Upper Egypt, with their arrows. For it will become clear later that Dis is Mizraim. In describing the seats of the Titans we referred to the Egyptian <64r> Story about Charon ferrying the souls of the dead through the Styx and Acheron to the kingdom of Pluto. ‡ < insertion from f 63v > ‡ that is, about him transporting the corpses of Egyptians across the river Nile and the Acherusian marsh to the plain of the dead, so that they might be laid to rest in crypts there. For so Diodorus interpreted certain stories of Homer about the Egyptian city of Heliopolis and the meadows situated beyond it, where the dead reign. Therefore the souls which Charon transports and of which the kingdom of Pluto consists, are the corpses themselves < text from f 64r resumes > i.e., in the crypts the souls which he carries and of which the kingdom of Pluto consists, are the corpses themselves. For it is well-known that 'souls' is written for 'corpses' even in the holy scriptures, Revelation, 6.9, 18.13 and 20.4, Psalms 16.10, Acts 2.21, Ezekiel 44.25. Therefore the kingdom of Pluto where the Titans lived, is that plain of the dead, and anywhere else in Egypt where the dead were laid in crypts. And Pluto or Dis is Osiris, Leader of the Egyptian dead. For he was the father of them all, and was the first of all men to die, and his funeral rites were celebrated [reading fuere] with the greatest solemnity every year for many centuries. ✝[101] Hence too the Druids in Gaul, who had received their Philosophy from the Egyptians, used to say that Dis was the father of all men.

When Typho made his assault upon the Gods, great was their terror, by flight from heaven and transformation[Editorial Note 362]. This flight and metamorphosis into various adopted forms the daughter of Pierus describes in Ovid more elegantly than accurately.

[Editorial Note 363] She sang of the battle of the gods and giants,

ascribing undeserved honour to the

Giants and belittling the deeds of the mighty Gods:

how Typhoeus, sprung from the lowest depths of earth,

inspired the heavenly gods with fear, and how they all turned

their backs and fled, until, weary, they found refuge in the land

of Egypt and the seven-mouthed Nile.

How even here Typhoeus, son of earth,

pursued them, and the gods hid themselves in lying shapes:

'Jove thus became a ram,' said she, 'the lord of flocks, whence

Libyan Ammon even to this day is represented with curving horns;

Apollo hid as a crow, Bacchus as a goat;

the sister of Phoebus as a cat, Juno as a snow-white cow,

Venus as a fish, Mercury as an ibis bird.'

Such was the consternation of the Gods said to be until Hercules arrived. For it is admitted by all, says Diodorus, that Hercules brought help to the heavenly Gods in the war of the Giants. The Egyptians worshipped Gods in the shape of animals, a[102] and the priests in their secret communication told how the Gods had changed into those shapes. For <65r> they worshipped the images of those animals in their temples. The temples of the Egyptians, says Lucian {illeg} {illeg} Imagines,[Editorial Note 364] are both very beautiful and very grand, and constructed of costly stones and adorned[Editorial Note 365]; but if you look for the God within, you will find either an ape or a stork or a goat or a cat. Also Strabo: In the temples of the Egyptians (Strab {illeg}pag. {illeg} 0 5)[Editorial Note 366] there is either no image at all, or there is one that is not made in human form but in the shape of an animal.

I have described this flight of the Gods and their metamorphosis and the war with the Giants rather fully, in order to prove from them that all the heavenly Gods were lived just before the famous war, and that they all lived at the same time in Egypt, except for Saturn. Later they all took part in this war, except Osiris who had been slain; and therefore the four sons of Cham – Chus, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan – are to be placed in the list of the Gods immediately after Jupiter, and the rest of the Gods are to be sought among the grandsons of Cham. And we should not admit any heavenly gods at all except for Noah, Cham, and the sons and grandsons of Cham, and their sisters and wives. Some add Shem and Japhet; others also add certain Greek men who were more recent than these. But the Egyptians, who consecrated the Gods, did not look to foreign and far distant peoples, and of those who lived in Egypt, Orus son of Osiris is said to have been the last to reign, and his mother Isis, whom they call both Ceres and Astraea, is held by the Egyptians to be the last of the heavenly gods. For so Albricus[Editorial Note 367] calls Ceres the last of the Gods and Goddesses, and Ovid says that in the age of iron, Astraea, the last of the heavenly ones, abandoned the land, i.e., the land of Egypt. For at the death of Orus and Isis, the Arabs, after devastating Egypt, put the Gods to flight, and inaugurated the age of iron which put an end to the Ages of the gods. Now that we have explained all this, it will not be difficult to enumerate the Gods individually.

Chapter 4
That Chus is Hercules, Mars, Moloch, and the first Belus.

Mars, Moloch and Belus are simply different names for Hercules. For Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.12, tells us that Hercules is the same as Mars in these words: Virgil, with his wealth of lofty learning, associates the Salii[Editorial Note 368] with Hercules, because this God is regarded as the same as Mars by the Pontifices[Editorial Note 369] as well. And indeed Varro makes the same assertion in the piece in his Menippea entitled This other Herakles[Editorial Note 370]: in which he said a great deal about Hercules and proved that he was the same as Mars. Also the Chaldaeans call the star of Hercules what everyone else calls the star of Mars. That is what Macrobius says. And Aristotle in his book, On the World[Editorial Note 371], says that many people called the star of Mars the star of Hercules. Hyginus tells us the same in his Poetic Astronomy[Editorial Note 372], as well as Pliny, bk. 2, ch. 8[Editorial Note 373]. And Achilles Tatius in his Introduction[Editorial Note 374] says that for the Egyptians the star of Mars is the star of Hercules. And so too Nitichindus writes in Saxon Chronicles, bk. 1, ch. 37, that the Germans, in accordance with a traditional error, conduct their worship with a peculiar rite of their own; they worship a Mars who imitates Hercules by an image of columns. Thus Mars and Hercules are used indifferently by the ancients. <66r> Herodotus[Editorial Note 375] affirms that for the Egyptians Hercules is one of the twelve Gods, but the Latins in the Ennian list[Editorial Note 376] of those gods has Mars for Hercules. So too in the war of the Gods Mars is sometimes written for Hercules, for example, when Athenagoras (A Plea for Christians)[Editorial Note 377] speaks of Mars as a helper of Jupiter against the Titans, and Apollodorus and others say that Mars was put in bonds by the Giants, Otus and Ephialtes, in that war, and freed by Mercury. [So too {Hero}dotus, bk. 2 or 3,[Editorial Note 378] {[tells a story about Mars]}[Editorial Note 379] which is usually told about Hercules; he says that Mars lay with his mother, and a ritual of this fact survived in the temple of Mars, and adds that this temple, where there was a sanctuary of Juno, was sacred to Hercules. Check this.]. Also ‡ < insertion from f 65v > their names are consistent with this. For the Egyptians Hercules is Heron. Hence Heros, Herus, ρα–κλης, ארי, αρὴσ[Editorial Note 380] < text from f 66r resumes >

Kircher[Editorial Note 381] tells us that the star of Mars was also called Molech by the Egyptians in his Prodr. Copt. ch. 5, p. 147, and T. 1. Oed. p. 5.4. ch. 15. p. 328 and T. 2. p. 1. cl. 6. ch. 4. §2. p. 415; and it is also evident that Molech is the same as Mars from the human sacrifices by which they placated this God. For such sacrifices indicate a cruel God, who is accustomed to killings and thirsty for blood. The same is also evident from the compound names of this God Adra-Melech and Melech-artes, which signify a strong or Warlike king. That Melicartes is the Phoenician Hercules is affirmed by Sanchoniatho. This is also evident from the festival games. For Hyginus says in Fable 2 that the Gymnastic games which are called Isthmian take place every fifth year in honour of Melicartes[Editorial Note 382], and Apollodorus bk. 3, ch. 4 adds that the Isthmian Festival was instituted by Sisyphus for Melicertes. And these games were performed[Editorial Note 383] in honour of Hercules, exactly as by the Greeks, 2 Maccab. 4. 18, 19. The word, עריץ, Arits (and in contracted form Arts) means very strong and brave, as in Persian names like Artaxerxes, Arta-banus, and so on. Hesychius: Αρταιοι, δι Ἥρωες παρα Πέρσαις[Editorial Note 384]: Heroes are called Artaei among the Persians. And just as Melicartes comes from this word, so the Latins seem to have formed Ma-vortem or Martem from forti[Editorial Note 385]. For the Latins were sprung from the Phrygians, and the Phrygians prefixed the particle Ma as in Mazeus[Editorial Note 386] Jupiter – see Hesychius: Mazeu, Zeus for the Phrygians.[Editorial Note 387] Add to this that Melitta, the name of Venus among the Eastern peoples, is formed from Molech or Melech: and from this verbal relationship it follows that Molech is either the husband of Venus or her lover Mars. But no one disputes that Molech is Vulcan

Pausanias calls [103] Belus an Egyptian man. It is obvious that he is the same as Mars because he was the first to make war with swords and he gave war its name[Editorial Note 389], as Hyginus tells us. In Hestiaeus, a very early author (preserved in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 9)[Editorial Note 390], Baal is called Zeus Enualios, and Enualios is Mars in Homer and the Lexicographers[Editorial Note 391]. So too Suidas under the word Thouras[Editorial Note 392]: in the tongue of the Assyrians Baal signifies Mars, the patron of war. < insertion from f 65v > And this is the reason why spoils of war were dedicated to Jupiter Feretrius, and in Pausanias and Plutarch (Life of Pyrrhus) there is a mention of Areos Zeus[Editorial Note 393], Jupiter Martialis; also, in Cyril (Against Julian, bk. 3.1) the father of Ninus is called Arbelus, i.e. Mars Belus. For Ari signifies Mars, as we have just said, as when Ar of the Moabites is called Areiopolis, by the Greeks, i.e., city of Mars; and further Cicero proves that the Indian Heracles was given the cognomen Belus (On the Nature of the Gods, bk. 3)[Editorial Note 394]. < text from f 66r resumes > This is also evident from the human sacrifices by which he was placated, exactly like Molech. Furthermore, that Baal and Molech are the same God may be deduced from the similar meanings of their names, since the latter means King and the former means Lord. This is also clear from the application of the name Malachbelus to this God, since it is compounded of both names, and also from the interchangeability of the names. They built high places for Baal in the valley of Hinnon, in order to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech (Jeremiah 32.35), i.e., in order to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal (Jeremiah 19.5). It is clear finally from the thunderbolt with which Jupiter Belus is armed. For the thunderbolts which the Cyclopes forge are weapons of war, and Jupiter for whom they made them <67r> is not Hammon but the Belus who was the first to make war with the sword.

For since Jehovah, whom the Greeks called Iao[Editorial Note 395], and the Latins Iao-pater or Jupiter, was the name of the eternal and supreme God, and since the nations, who were always prone to superstition, gradually turned dead men into living Spirits, and Spirits into powerful Divinities and celestial Gods, and from the latter fashioned eternally celestial Gods, and then made the greatest of them the soul of the whole world, and finally the immeasurable and omnipotent Deity, it came about that each people took the God whom they most revered as the God of the heavens and of the whole universe, and therefore called him Jupiter; and then they called whoever was the father of this Jupiter, Saturn, and they called the most powerful of his sons, Hercules, and in this way they developed a good number of Saturns, Jupiters and Hercules. This is what Xenophon says in his De Aequivocis[Editorial Note 396]. The most serene of kings from noble families, who founded cities, are called Saturns. The most serene first-born of those who founded cities.[Editorial Note 397] Their first-born are called Jupiters and Junos. Their bravest grandsons are called Hercules. The fathers of Saturns are called Caelus, their Wives are Rhea, and the Wives of Caelus are called Vesta. There are therefore as many Caelus, Vestas, Rheas, Junos and Hercules as there are Saturns. Also the same person that is Hercules for some peoples is Jupiter for others. For Ninus, who was Hercules for the Chaldaeans, was Jupiter for the Assyrians. Therefore, for the peoples of the East, as far as the ancient Assyrian empire and name extended, Ninus is Jupiter Belus, and for the Chaldaean wise men it is Hercules; and Belus, the father of Ninus, whom we have proved to be Hercules, is Saturn for the Assyrians and Jupiter for the Chaldaeans; and accordingly this Hercules is neither Assyrian nor Chaldaic, but is more ancient than these, and therefore Egyptian. Hence he who is Jupiter for the Egyptians, i.e., Cham, will be Saturn for the Chaldaeans and Caelus for the Assyrians; and Noah, who is Saturn for the Egyptians, will be Caelus for the Chaldaeans and Hypsuranius for the Assyrians. For the Assyrians call the father of Caelus Hypsuranius. The Chaldaeans therefore by worshipping the Jupiter who is younger than the Egyptian Jupiter, start the generation of the Gods from the father of Saturn whom they call Caelum, and the Assyrians in worshipping a still younger Jupiter begin the genealogy of the Gods with the father of Caelum whom they call Hypsuranius. And so they all begin with Noah; for no one posits anyone more ancient than Hypsuranius. [104] Eupolemus agrees with Xenophon when he says: the Babylonians are accustomed to say that the first man to exist was Belus, who is commonly called Saturn; <68r> and his children were Belus [commonly called the Babylonian Belus] and Chanaan. And he [i.e. Belus] first begat Chanaan, who was the father of the Phoenicians. And the son of this one [Belus] was Chu [read Chus], the father of the Ethiopians, and brother of Misraim, father of the Egyptians[Editorial Note 398]. The Babylonians here understand Belus as any Jupiter at all, and say that Belus or the first Jupiter is the father of the Babylonian Belus and of Canaan, i.e., the Jupiter Hammon, whom they commonly call Saturn; then they explain more fully who that first Belus is by saying that Chanaan, whom he begat, is the father of the Phoenicians and brother of Chus and Mizraim.

And now since the kings of the Assyrians originate from Arabian stock and are descended from Saturn, Jupiter and Hercules – Egyptian, Chaldaic and Assyrian – in a direct line, and on that ground every Hercules is Arabian, and Chus is the most ancient and greatest of the Arabs; and since the eastern nations do not acknowledge anyone in the genealogy of the Gods more ancient than Hypsuranius, and he is therefore Noah, and his grandson, the Assyrian Saturn whom we have proved to be the father of Ninus, is one of the sons of Cham, and therefore Chus; and since the Belus of the Chaldaeans is as much the brother of Chanaan as the Egyptian Hercules, and on both counts he is Ham's son, Chus – by these three arguments it is evident that the Arabian son, Chus ‡ < insertion from f 67v > ‡ it is abundantly clear that Chus is the Egyptian Hercules. This is also clear from the division of the lands of Egypt between the sons of Cham. For since Osiris obtained the southern portion, Antaeus the western, and Busiris the northern, the only portion that remained to be granted to Hercules were the areas to the east, i.e. the Arabian parts. This will become still clearer below from the wars which he waged, and emerged as victor over almost the whole human race. For he was excessively fond of veneration, in the manner of Arabs, and was made more audacious by his capture of wild beasts. After he had accomplished the very great wars in Egypt with his club, he armed himself with iron, with the help of his brother Vulcan, and setting out for the land of Sennaar with his children, he conquered the family of Shem. (In memory of this victory, an annual triumph was instituted in the Rites of Bacchus, and was celebrated through virtually the whole of the east right down to Roman times). Then after traversing the whole world and conquering all the nations as far as India, he divided the whole vast area between his sons; and by placing the bravest son, Nimrod, in Assyria and Mesopotamia, he founded the empire of the Assyrians. And now he who was the originator of war and waged so many himself, is deservedly held to be the God of war. But before I narrate the wars of Asia and the origins of the Assyrian kingdom, the order of things requires that I tell the Egyptian story < text from f 68r resumes >

<67v>

Chapter 5
That Mizraim is Osiris and Serapis and Menaetius and Dis or Pluto

<68v>

Chapter 5
That Mizraim is Osiris and Serapis and Menaetius and Dis or Pluto, and that Pathros, son of Mizraim, is Orus or Apollo, and that he had a daughter, Bubaste or Diana, and an illegitimate son, Thoth, or the first Mercury

<69r>

It is not Hammon but Belus who first made war with the sword

For since Jehovah whom the Greeks called Iao[Editorial Note 399], the Latins Iao-pater or Jupiter, was the name of the eternal and supreme God, and since the nations, who were always prone to superstition, gradually turned dead men into living Spirits, Spirits into powerful Divinities and celestial Gods; they made the latter into eternally celestial Gods, and from the greatest of these they fashioned the soul of the whole world, and finally the immeasurable and omnipotent Deity, it came about that each people took the God whom they most revered as the God of the heavens and of the whole universe, and therefore called him Jupiter; then they called the father of Jupiter whoever he was, Saturn, and the most powerful of his sons, Hercules. For so Xenophon says in his Aequivoca. The most serene of those kings of noble families, who founded cities, are called Saturns. Their first-born are called Jupiters and Junos. Their bravest grandsons are called Hercules. The fathers of Saturns are called Caelus, their Wives are Rhea, and the Wives of Caeluses are called Vesta. There are therefore as many Caelus, Vestas, Rheas, Junos and Hercules as there are Saturns. Also the same person that is Hercules for some peoples is Jupiter for others. For Ninus, who was Hercules for the Chaldaeans, was Jupiter for the Assyrians. Eupolemus (in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 9, ch. 17) agrees with Xenophon when he says: the Babylonians are accustomed to say that the first man to exist was Belus, who is commonly called Saturn, and who begat another Belus and Chanaan. Ninus therefore is Jupiter Belus for the Assyrians and Hercules for the Babylonians. And Ninus, the father of Hercules, whom we have proved is Hercules, is Saturn for the Assyrians, Jupiter for the Babylonians. Accordingly, this Hercules is neither Assyrian nor Babylonian, but is more ancient than these, and is therefore Egyptian. Similarly Cham, who is Jupiter for the Egyptians, will be Saturn for the Chaldaeans and Caelus for the Assyrians; and Noah, who is Saturn for the Egyptians, will be Caelus for the Chaldaeans and Hypsuranius for the Assyrians. For the Assyrians speak of the father of Caelus as Hypsuranius. The Chaldaeans therefore by worshipping the Jupiter who is younger than the Egyptian Jupiter, begin the generation of the Gods with the father of Saturn, whom they call Caelum, and the Assyrians in worshipping a still younger Jupiter begin the genealogy of the Gods with Caelum {illeg}, whom they call Hypsuranius. And thus they all start with Noah. What is said of the Assyrians must also be understood of the Syrians. For they had the same government and the same Philosophy. I include also the Syrians because they all had the same Government and the same Theology.

<69v>

Furthermore, the wife of Caelus, whom Xenophon names Vesta, the Assyrians called Titia, i.e., Earth, from the word, טיט, lit, which means mud, and hence they called the Titans sons of Caelus, i.e. earth-born. Also the Titans in the Assyrian Theology are sons of Cham. For they never, or almost never, occur in the Chaldaean Theology, except in so far as Greek and Latin writers confused the two Theologies with each other.

Moreover, Chus conquered the whole vast area from Arabia to India and divided it among his sons, as is obvious from the seats of his sons. Furthermore, Chus occupied all the regions that lie around the gulf of the Persian Sea and d...[Editorial Note 400] among his sons

Furthermore, Chus led all his sons – Seba, Chavila, Sabta, Regma and Sabteca – out of Egypt, and divided among them all the areas around the Persian Gulf which he had occupied. For Regma settled with sons, Sheba and Dedan, in the eastern angle of Arabia Felix beside the mouth of that sea, where the cities Regma and Dedan and the Sabo Mountains and the Sabaean peoples are recorded by Mela[Editorial Note 401]. Then he led Seba (who is undoubtedly the father of the Iemanitae) to Chaldaea on this side of Regma. Then he led Chavila to a land which is to the east of Egypt (Genesis 25.18; 1 Samuel 15.7), lying to the east of Scaenis[Editorial Note 402], i.e., {illeg}abater and {Aoarems} (Pliny)[Editorial Note 403], so that they seem to have settled midway between the Nabataeans and the Agrei or Agraei (Strabo bk.16, p. 767 and Dionysius), i.e., with the Nabataeans on their south west border and the Agareni on the north west border. For the Agraei lived to the east of Gilead (1 Chronicles 5.10), and the Nabataeans to the South of Judaea between the Red Sea and Chavila. Beyond Chavila and[Editorial Note 404] Babylonia lies Susiana, which for the Greeks is Kissia[Editorial Note 405], for the Chaldaeans Cuth, for the Hebrews and its own inhabitants, Chus, and for the Persians, Chusestan, i.e., the province of Chus; so that Chus himself seems to have settled in this region. But also immediately east of the Susiani are the Cossaei, above the Cossaei to the north is Mesabatene. Here Sabta settled, as well as in the island of Sophta and in the neighbouring areas of Persia towards the east as far as the Stobaei. Then Sabteca moved into the southern part of Carmania near the mouth of the Persian gulf. Consult Bochart on the seats of all these people.

<70r>

And now that I have laid these foundations, I say that Chus is the Hercules of the Egyptians, and I say this for the following reasons.

From what we have said, it is evident that the Assyrian kings, who were Arabs by race, descended from Saturn, Jupiter and Hercules – both the Egyptian and the Babylonian and the Assyrian – in a direct line, and thus that the Egyptian Hercules is Arabian. We have also shown that that Hercules is that Belus, father of Ninus, whom everyone recognises was an Arab. Hence, since this Hercules participated in the war of the giants and is a son of the Egyptian Jupiter, it follows that he is Chus, the first father of the Arabs. Therefore Nimrod is not Belus, as is commonly believed, but his son Ninus. And their names support this, provided that Nimrod was נן-רודת, Nin-rod, i.e., Lord Ninus.

In addition, Symbol (circle surmounted by a circle containing a cross) in text < insertion from f 69v > Symbol (circle surmounted by a circle containing a cross) in text In addition, since the Chaldaean Jupiter is younger than the Egyptian one, the Chaldaeans, as we have said, do not begin the genealogy of the gods with Saturn but with his father, whom they call Caelum; and no one posits anyone older than Hypsuranius. He is therefore, among the Assyrians, the most ancient of the Gods, Noah; and his grandson, the Assyrian Saturn, is the same as Chus, Noah's grandson. And we have already proved earlier that the Assyrian Saturn is the same as Jupiter Belus, i.e., as Hercules. < text from f 70r resumes > The eastern peoples do not ascend higher in the genealogy of Hercules, Jupiter, Saturn and Caelus, than to Hypsuranius, grandfather of Saturn; and therefore he will be the most ancient of the Gods, Noah, as has already been said; and his grandson, the Assyrian Saturn, is the same as Noah's grandson, Chus. And we have already proved that the Assyrian Saturn is the same as Jupiter Belus, i.e., Hercules.

In addition to this, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto are held by all to be sons of Saturn. We have already shown that Neptune and Pluto are Typho and Osiris, and we will prove this more fully subsequently; and accordingly, their brother, Saturn, is Cham; this is the Theology of the Chaldaeans. And Jupiter of the Chaldaeans is Belus, father of Ninus, and thus he will be a brother of Neptune and Pluto and a son of Cham, and on that account the first father of the Arabs, Chus. Here is that Jupiter who divided the world between himself and his brothers; he gave to Pluto the kingdom of the dead because of the slaughter in which he had involved the Egyptians, to Neptune the kingdom of the sea, i.e. of the maritime regions as far as the pillars of Hercules, and kept for himself the dominion of the sky, i.e., the highest and greatest kingdom that he founded in Babylonia. For sky is used for very extensive dominion, and the kingdom of the skies for the greatest kingdom, by sapient mythologists and ancient Prophets. Moreover, it is clear from the theology of the East that here by Jupiter king of the skies is meant Belus. Belus is he whom the Phoenicians (says Sanchoniatho)[Editorial Note 406] call lord of heaven, Beelsamen, i.e., Olympian Jupiter, as he is named by others. Belus is Uranus and Jupiter: Hesychius. He is that celestial hurler of thunderbolts, who first waged war with the sword, and for whom the Cyclopes forge the thunderbolts of war. Apollodorus, bk. 1, speaking of the war of the Titans, says[Editorial Note 407]: Then the Cyclopes presented Jupiter with thunder and lightning, they presented Pluto with a helmet, and Neptune with a trident. Armed with these weapons, they subdued the Titans, and then shared out the empire of things by lot among themselves, and awarded the kingdom of the Sky to Jupiter, of the sea to Neptune, and of the underworld to Pluto. Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto and the father of the Cyclopes are the four sons of Cham, and they waged war against each other,

<70v>

Since therefore the Assyrian kings, who derive their origin from the Arabs, their father Chus from Saturn, Jupiter and Hercules, Hercules ... and on that account every Hercules is Arabian[Editorial Note 408]; and since the eastern nations do not recognise anyone in the genealogy of the Gods who is more ancient than Hypsuranius, and therefore he is Noah, and his grandson, the Assyria{n} Saturn, whom we have proved to be the father of Ninus, is one of the sons of Cham; and since he is the Chaldaean Belus and the brother of Chanaan, and is the Egyptian Hercules, and therefore, on that ground also, a son of Cham: for these four reasons it is evident that the son of Cham and the father of the Arabs is the Egyptian Hercules. Therefore Nimrod is not the Belus who was the father of Ninus, but the Assyrian Belus who was the same as Ninus. And their names support this, provided that Nimrod was נן רודת Nin-rod, i.e., Lord Ninus. Certainly Assyria, whose capital city of Nineveh took its name from Ninus, was for the Hebrews the land of Nimrod (Micah 5.6).

And just as holy scripture derives the Assyrian empire from Nimrod, so the Gentile writers celebrate Ninus as its founder. The very first king of the Assyrians, Ninus [Editorial Note 409], replaced the ancient and as it were native habits of the nations with an altogether new desire for empire. He was the first to make war on his neighbours, and he conquered peoples who were still inexperienced in defending themselves as far as the borders of Libya (Justin, bk. 1). Before Ninus, by whom, according to some writers, Semiramis is believed to have been begotten, no remarkable events are recorded in the books (Macrobius Dream of Scipio, bk. 2, ch. 10)[Editorial Note 410]. The first King of the Assyrians, Ninus, son of Belus, ruled over the whole of Asia, etc. Eusebius, Chronicon[Editorial Note 411]. This is also confirmed by the religion of the Assyrians, for whom Ninus was certainly the greatest of the Gods, Jupiter Belus. For nations especially celebrate and venerate the Founders of their Kingdoms. However we learn from Diodorus that Ninus not only accomplished all things[Editorial Note 412], but also began his reign under the auspices of his father[Editorial Note 413]; Diodorus writes as follows: d[105] The first of those who have come down into history and remembrance [Editorial Note 415], Ninus ––– released. The [106] Ariaeus who in those times was King of the Arabs, could have been no other than Chus, the Father and Lord of all the Arabs. And from his name Ariaiou and the time of the war and the courage of his nation, he is recognised to be the originator of war and the God Ares[Editorial Note 417]. He is therefore Belus, the father of Ninus, who was the first to make war with the sword, but after he had seated his son on the Throne of Babylon by force of arms, he withdrew to Arabia, either voluntarily or, more likely, because he had been driven out by his son; and he was finally worshipped as Jupiter Belus by those Chaldaeans whom he had brought from Egypt to Babylonia, as we have said. This is even confirmed by the name of the Chaldaeans, since in Hebrew they are called כשדים, Chasdim, i.e. Chasij, or sons or disciples of Chus. It is also confirmed by names of places in the Babylonian empire. For the region of Susiana which lies beyond Babylonia and the Tigris {is called}[Editorial Note 418] by a[107] the Greeks Κισσια and Κοσσεα, Cissia and Cossea, by b[108] the Chaldaeans כות, Chuth, by c[109] the Hebrews the land of Chus, and by the Persians Chuzestan, i.e. the province of Chus; so Dom. Mar. Niger Geog. Asiae[Editorial Note 420] Com. 5 says: the province of Susiana follows, which indeed in <71r> and against the Babylonians[Editorial Note 421]. But the Chaldaeans only attributed three royal sons to Saturn, both because they assigned no empire to those who had been conquered and thus reduced to servitude, and because Canaan, according to their Theology, was not a brother of Ninus but a son, as we have already heard from Eupolemus.

The fourth point to observe is that the Arabs, as Herodotus tells us[Editorial Note 422], worshipped only two Gods, Alilat and Orotalt, or the heavenly Venus and Dionysus. Hence Arrian writes in Book 7[Editorial Note 423] that Alexander the great, when he heard that the Arabs worshipped only two Gods, namely Uranus [or rather Urania] and Dionysus, and that [they worshipped] Dionysus because of his having led an army into India, he thought himself not unworthy to be reckoned a third God among the Arabs he was not inferior in his achievements to Dionysus. On the basis of his Indian expedition this Dionysus is recognised to be the same as Hercules. The name Dionysus means Jupiter of Nisa, it is this Nisa[Editorial Note 424], and therefore he was Jupiter Belus of the Arabs. For the city was in Arabia between Phoenicia and the Nile near Lake Sarbonis. For Diodorus reports[Editorial Note 425] that Dionysus was brought up here. From the location of this city I infer that in the beginning the Arabs, coming out of Egypt, placed a colony here under the leadership of Dionysus. From the name of Jupiter I infer that Dionysus was Belus of the Chaldaeans and Ninus son of Belus for the Assyrians; and finally from the joint cult of Dionysus and Venus, I infer that the Dionysus whom the Arabs worshipped was Mars, the lover of Venus, who was called Belus by the Babylonians. But the God who was Arabian by race and whom the Arabs alone worshipped, could scarcely be other than Chus, their own common father. For just as each nation particularly worshipped the God who had founded their nation or empire, so too we have to believe that the Arabic nations did the same, especially since they remained always unconquered, and could never be induced to accept the many, many Gods of other nations. Lucian writes in his Dialogues (in The True History bk. 1)[Editorial Note 426] that Bacchus accompanied Hercules as far as the columns of Hercules. It is inferred from this that Bacchus is of the family of Hercules. Hence since Bacchus originates from the city of Nisa in Arabia, Hercules too will be Arabian, and the father of all the Arabs. If Bacchus is called Bar Chus by the Syrians instead of בר כוש, as Dammasek (Damascus) is called Darmasek instead of דרמשק, and if he is called Ιακχοσ by the Greeks instead of υιοχους[Editorial Note 427], he will be a son of Chus. Thus if Lucian, who was Syrian by nationality, followed the Syrian Theology, in which Dionysus is used for Ninus (for he also asserts in the Syrian fashion that Bacchus is young), Chus, the father of Bacchus [reading Bacchi for Bacohi], will be the same as Belus.

fifthly all these things from the first...of Hercules[Editorial Note 428]

<71v>

And hence it came about that not only Arabia but also the Transtigris region of Susiana was once called the land of Chus and Kissia[Editorial Note 429]; and Chuzestan or the province of Chus and the neighbouring peoples are called Cossaei, and that Hercules was said to have undertaken a journey as far as India, which he did in order to settle colonies of his own people in the intervening regions of Persia and Carmania, and that the noble men and magnates of Persia are called Artaei. For Artaeus was an epithet of Hercules (as in the names Melicarte, Chus-arta, M-arte) and originally referred to his family and such like. Araioi, Heroes among the Persians,[Editorial Note 430] Hesychius; and, Nimrod is brother of heroes, Methodius[Editorial Note 431].

When Chus divided the lands among his sons, Nimrod, the bravest of the sons, subjugated the land of Sennaar and later also Assyria. For Assyria was the land of Nimrod (Micah, 5.6), i.e. (in the idiom of the holy scriptures) the land of the people who descended from him. The origin of his kingdom, says Moses[Editorial Note 432], was Babyl and Erech and Accad and Calneh; from those parts he went out into Assyria, and founded Nineveh and Rehoboth and Calah and Resen; that is, he went out with his forces, and conquered the peoples, and placed colonies of his own people there which gradually grew into very big cities, from which cities were founded. For in holy scripture kings are said to go out from their own lands into those of others when they go out with their forces to war, and colonies were founded throughout the period when colonies1 were being settled2. Therefore since Nimrod surpassed his brothers in courage and had become more warlike as a result of Hunting wild beasts, he obtained the Mediterranean regions, which were larger in extent and more populous, and thus he founded the largest empire of them all and the most long-lasting, moving the capital of his empire from Babylon to Nineveh. For when the first men from the regions beyond the Tigris, where they founded Babel (as it is called in Hebrew) and from there sent out colonies to every land, which all soon developed different languages, and the city of Babel, thus emptied of its people, ceased to be developed, i.e. ceased to grow (Gen[Editorial Note 433]), it has to be conceived that when Chus set out from Egypt, he attacked this city first, since it was quite close to Egypt and was in some manner the metropolis of the Easterners. From there he established government for those easterners who had been conquered. For the Babylonians and the Phoenicians seem to have retained a memory of this when they wrote that Belus founded Babylon and reigned there. He established therefore a kingdom in Babylon and the cities adjoining the land of Sennaar, as Moses writes. But after the seat of his kingdom was transferred to Nineveh, that city grew immensely (Jonah 3.3), and Babylon lay neglected, until by the division of the Assyrian empire, it became the capital city of a new kingdom, whose beginning Isaiah describes as follows: Behold the land[Editorial Note 434]

This is why, when Moses wanted to describe the beginning of the kingdom of the Assyrians, he omitted Chus, the father of all the Arabs, and begins with Nimrod, the father of the Assyrians and their first king.

that is, Nimrod the first king of the Assyrians, after having conquered the descendants of Shem, first ruled with his father and brothers in the land of Senaar, then went out with his people into Assyria, in order to conquer the peoples there and to settle colonies there, from which Nineveh, the metropolis of the kingdom, and other new cities were founded.

<72r>

Moreover, all these things are confirmed by the number and seats of the sons of Cham according to Diodorus's account. For if Osiris, Atlas and Busiris are, like Hercules, sons of Chus, and if the southern regions were given to Osiris, the western to Atlas, and the northern to Busiris (as has been said), there would be left for Hercules the regions looking towards the east, i.e. the Arabian regions. All agree that Dionysus, who is Hercules, lived in Nisa, a city of Arabia. It will be evident from the location and names of the places that he led out a colony thither from Egypt, with the intention of migrating to more distant regions beyond. For at one time only the region which is flooded by the Nile was called Egypt. This extends for a great distance from the mountains of Ethiopia to the Mediterranean Sea in a breadth which rarely exceeds three hundred stades. On both sides are mountains and sterile and sandy regions; and the whole area between Egypt and the Red Sea is sterile and related to Arabia. There is only one route from Egypt to Syria and Arabia; it passes by the city of Pelusium, which lies beside the Mediterranean sea. From here one may journey to Arabia by two routes, one by way of Heroonpolis which is located on the inner gulf of the red Sea, and the other by Mount Casius and Lake Sirbonis near the Mediterranean Sea. Heroonpolis is 900 stades from Pelusium and seems to have taken its name from Hercules and his sons. חורים, Horim, in Hebrew are free men or Princes liberally educated and Heroes. This is what the Princes of Babylon are called, Isaiah 34.12. Hence Liber for Bacchus, and Heros for a brave and generous Prince. Not undeservedly Methodius calls Nimrod brother of Heroes.[Editorial Note 435].

Sixthly, that Hercules is Arabic is also inferred also his character and manner of life. For he was a Shepherd and devoted to hunting and plunder and war, living as a man of the fields and forest, violent and cruel. For he seized other people's cattle, and stole other cattle by stealth[Editorial Note 436] and killed them, and he cleared the land of wild beasts; hence the name of Mars Sylvanus[Editorial Note 437] and of Silenus were given to him. For it is clear that Silenus came from Hercules' seat of government. They say that Silenus was the first ruler of Nisa: Diodorus, bk. 3. From his savage manner of living he became strong and rapacious. And such are the Arabs altogether. They live from herds and flocks and by capturing wild animals and birds

<72v>

{Behold the land of the}[Editorial Note 438] Chaldaeans! That people did not exist at one time. The Assyrian founded it for the Desert dwellers; they erected its fortresses, and raised up its palaces. He (he is speaking of the Assyrian), laid it in ruins. That is, those who are now Chaldaeans were at one time not a people, but were subject to the Assyrians. But from different peoples they had coalesced into one nation not long before; previously they were either wandering in the Southern deserts[Editorial Note 439]. And from different peoples they had coalesced into one nation not long before. The Assyrian people, by the division of their kingdom, had founded it for Arabian tent-dwellers, and held it as their closest possession. For they were summoned and gathered by the Assyrians; they erected the fortresses of its metropolis Babylon, and raised its palaces. But he made it to be laid waste by the Medes and Persians. So Isaiah, more than a hundred years earlier, when Babylon under the kings before (?) the reign of Nebuchadnezzar[Editorial Note 440]. For previously in this manner . But it was finally equipped by Nebuchadnezzar with the most magnificent walls and other very splendid works (Daniel 4.30. Berosus in Josephus, Against Apion, bk. 1), all of which Ctesias and his successors falsely attribute to Semiramis.

It will be abundantly clear that Nimrod is the same as Ninus, from a comparison of Moses and other writers. For Moses tells us that the Assyrian empire was founded by Nimrod, and that he first ruled in Babylon and then went out from that land into Assyria and there founded Nineveh and other cities (Genesis 2), and that is why Assyria is called the land of Nimrod. Similarly, Gentile writers tell us that both the Empire of the Assyrians and Nineveh, or Ninus, the capital of the empire, were founded by Ninus. Ninum Ninus

It will be abundantly clear that Nimrod is the same as Ninus from a comparison of Moses and other writers. For Moses (Genesis 2) tells us that the Assyrian empire was founded by Nimrod, and that he first ruled in the land of Sennaar, and then went out from that land into Assyria, and there founded Nineveh and other cities (as the better scholars interpret the text). And this is why Assyria is called the land of Nimrod (Micah 5.6). Similarly, Gentile writers tell us that both the Empire of the Assyrians and Nineveh, the capital of the empire, were founded by Ninus. Ninus, the first king of the Assyrians, ––– called it Nineveh (Eusebius, Chronicon). Ninus is the city of the Assyrians that Ninus, the husband of Semiramis, founded in Assyria (Suidas, s.v. Ninus). We are told the same thing by the Venerable Augustine, On the City of God, bk. 16, ch. [blank][Editorial Note 441], Strabo, bk. 16, at the beginning, Diodorus, bk. 2.

The Assyrians were the first of all nations to obtain an empire. And a little further on: Between this time [i.e. when Carthage was destroyed] and the beginning of Ninus, king of the Assyrians, who was the first to obtain an empire, there is an interval of 1995 years (Velleius, bk. 1)[Editorial Note 442]. First of all men Ninus ... (Macrobius, Dream of Scipio, bk. 2, ch. 10).

All the histories, both Greek and Barbarian, say that Ninus, son of Belus, was the first to rule over the whole of Asia; he founded the city of Nineveh after his own name among the Assyrians. Jerome, On Hosea, 2. All the ancient Histories begin with Ninus, all the Roman Histories start from Proca (Orosius, bk. 2, ch. 2)[Editorial Note 443].

<73r>

Chapter 5[Editorial Note 444]
That Mizraim is Osiris and Serapis and Menaetius and Dis or Pluto, and that Mizraim had a son Orus or Apollo and a daughter Bubaste or Diana, and his illegitimate son was Thoth or the first Mercury

It is allowed by all scholars that Osiris and Isis were Egyptians, since their tombs were religiously preserved there, and the sites of their great deeds were on display[Editorial Note 445]. The most ancient [110] of all the Egyptian cities were founded by them and by their contemporaries, and the laws of Egypt are said to have been given first by Isis. In commemoration of the first development of cultivated crops and the plough, the Egyptians always a[111] invoked Isis at the time of harvest, and at the festival of Isis [112] they carried containers of wheat and barley. This was also why the Image of Serapis bore a measuring-vessel of corn on its Head, and the Oxen by which the ground was worked were consecrated to both Isis and Osiris with great solemnity. Hence since crops are said to have been first developed in the silver age, it follows that Osiris lived at that time; and therefore he is Misraim, the common Father of the Egyptians. For ✝[113] Diodorus has told us that he is coeval with the Egyptian Hercules and Lord of the whole of Egypt. Hence all Egyptians worshipped Osiris and Isis as the common parents of the whole of Egypt with the greatest veneration. Witness Herodotus bk. 2: The Egyptians, he says, do not all worship the same Gods except for Isis and Osiris[Editorial Note 446]. The cult of these names was diffused as widely as the posterity of Misraim, and scarcely further.

Diodorus says [114]: Some say that Saturn begat Osiris and Isis, but the majority say that he begat Jupiter and Juno, and their children were Osiris, Isis and Typho[Editorial Note 447]. Evidently for the Chaldaeans, who mean Hammon by Saturn, Osiris and Isis are children of Saturn, for others they are children of Jupiter, and thus by common consent they are children of Cham. Again Diodorus [115] writes[Editorial Note 448] that <74r> on the pillars erected to Isis and Osiris in Egypt, Saturn, the youngest-born, is said to be the father of Isis and Osiris, and Isis the mother of Orus. The youngest-born, Saturn, is a Chaldaean, whom the Egyptians undoubtedly adopted from the shepherds when they were in power, i.e. from Cham. Diodorus confirms all these things again by [116] writing that Osiris is the son of Jupiter, king of Egypt, whom they call Ammon.

Add to this that Sanchoniatho[Editorial Note 449], who is by far the earliest Writer and a careful investigator of historical origins, says that Isiris (the inventor of the three letters) is the brother of the Χνα, Chna, who was later the first to be called Phoenician[Editorial Note 450]. The Canaanites, who in the wars of Joshua migrated from the whole land of Chanaan into Africa, were called 'Punic or Phoenicians',[Editorial Note 451] and the Septuagint Translators use Phoenicia[Editorial Note 452] for Canaan, and therefore Phoenicia[Editorial Note 453] and the land of Canaan are words with the same meaning. Hence the first Phoenician, or Father of the Phoenicians, is the same as Chanaan, Father of the Chanaanites, here called Chna. For the land of Canaan also by a similar shortening of a word was once called Chna, and the people Chnaans. Stephanus of Byzantium in his book on Cities[Editorial Note 454]: Chna, this is what Phoenicia used to be called; and a bit later: the people of this place, Chnaans The word Chanaan, exactly like the word Hamon, is expanded by a grammatical termination. The root word is chana, humble (i.e. servant of servants, Genesis, 9) and, in contracted form, Chna. Therefore Osiris is the brother {of} Chanaan, and therefore son of Cham and the father of the Egyptians, Misraim.

We will give further confirmation of our interpretation from Sanchoniatho[Editorial Note 455]. In surveying the generations of the Gods from the beginning of the world and naming two Gods for each generation and sometimes three, he puts Ager and Agricola[Editorial Note 456] in the tenth generation, in place of Xisuthrus or Noah, who is tenth for the Chaldaeans and Moses; he also says that in the books of the ancients Agricola was named the greatest of the Gods, an altogether exceptional honour, and that the race of Farmers and Hunters (i.e., Egyptians and Arabs) is descended from these two, <75r> and that they left sons, Amynus and Magus, to whom the credit is given for establishing Farms and flocks. Their children were Misor and Sydyc ; Misor had a son Taautus, inventor of the first written Alphabet, whom the Egyptians [117] called Thoor, the Alexandrians Thoyth, and the Greeks Hermes. These things are derived partly from Egyptian and partly from Chaldaean records, and therefore two genealogies of the Gods are given here: an Egyptian one of the Gods Agricola, Amynus, Misor and Thoth; and a Chaldaean one of the Gods Ager, Magus, Sydyc and the Dioscuri. The races of Hunters[Editorial Note 457] and Farmers who descend from Ager and Agricola are the Arabs and the Egyptians. For the latter their first father, Noah, is celebrated under the name of Agricola, for the former under the name of Ager, or nomadic Hunter. For Egyptians cultivated the fields, while Arabs (from whom a[118] the Chaldaeans sprang) lived off cattle and wild animals. Both wanted their first father to be like themselves, and the Egyptians indeed truly, since Noah was truly a Farmer and the father of all Farmers. Furthermore from the praise of Agricola as the greatest of Gods, from his order in the genealogies as the tenth from the creation of the world, from his son Amynus, i.e., Amon or Ham, and his grandson Misor, i.e. Misraim, it is clear that he is Noah. The connection with Mercury confirms that Amynus is Jupiter Ammon, and Misor, the father of Mercury, is Osiris. For Mercury was b[119] son of Osiris and the agent and scribe of both c[120] Jupiter Ammon and Osiris. Ager therefore, who is placed as contemporary with Agricola, is also Noah, and his son Magus is Cham, and the easterners gave him that name because he was the father of Philosophers[Editorial Note 458]. The Arabs were shepherds, and therefore they here give the credit for the art of sheep-raising to Magus, and rightly so. For Hamon is always portrayed with ram's horns because of his discovery of the art of sheep-raising. The sons of Sydyc[Editorial Note 459] are called Dios kouroi[Editorial Note 460] by Sanchoniatho, sons of Jupiter, and therefore Sydyc is a cognomen of Jupiter and signifies here Jupiter of the Chaldaeans, i. e., the Egyptian Hercules. Hence since <76r> Sydyc and Misor are here stated to be brothers, this Misor will necessarily be Misraim. For Misraim is a double name, and signifies not so much the father of the people {as} the people itself, namely the two Egypts, Upper Egypt which is called Thebais and Lower Egypt at the mouths of the Nile. The individual name is Misor, from which the last Egyptian month was called Mesori and Egypt was sometimes called Masor (2 Kings 19.24, Isaiah, 19.6, Micah, 7.12); its Metropolis of Alexandria even to this daya[121] is called Maser by the Saracens[Editorial Note 461].

Now Masor, or מצור, signifies a protected or narrow place from the root, צור, Sor, to constrict. Hence, צר, Sar, narrow, or narrow place. For Egypt was protected on all sides by cliffs and by the river Nile, and in breadth was very narrow. Hence the Egyptians used to say Sor or Sir instead of Masor, as in the words Bu-siris, Cala-siris, Pelo-siris, in a certain stretch of the Nile which was called Siris, in the Star Sirius, and in the God Serapis. The Nile and the Star Sirius were sacred to Osiris, and that is why they were called Siris and Sirius, from his Egyptian name, which is Sir, if you remove the endings added by the Greeks. Hence the Nile (Joshua 13.3 and Jeremiah 2.18) is called Sihor by the Hebrews. And Sarapis was an Ox sacred to Osiris, which otherwise they called Apis, and by the compound name of Sar-Apis i.e., the ox of Osiris. The Image of Sarapis was also called by this name. The Egyptian name of Osiris therefore was Sir, for which the Greeks said Osiris (from hearing, in the solemn Rites of this God, the funeral laments of the Egyptians [The name of Serapis being composed of Osiris and Apis became Osirapis, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Nations][Editorial Note 462] and their frequent Exclamations of אוי צר, O Sir!). For Plutarch (in his Isis) complains that the Name Osiris is not Egyptian but was formulated by the Greeks; but he recognises the name Sarapis as Egyptian. The Greeks therefore prefixed the particle 'O', and for that reason Misraim, Misor and Osiris are not merely names of one and the same person, but are one and the same name.

[Editorial Note 463]It is widely agreed that Apis and Serapis are the same as Osiris and that they all signify Pluto. Most of the priests, says Plutarch, say that Osiris and Apis are combined into one, <77r> and they tell us by way of interpretation that Apis is to be understood as the beautiful image of the soul of Osiris. And ✝[122] Eusebius says: Apis is regarded as the first God in Egypt, and some call him Serapis. It is a universal law throughout Egypt, says Diodorus[Editorial Note 464], that the sacred bulls – both the one who is called Apis and the one who is called Mnevis – are consecrated to Osiris and worshipped as gods. And elsewhere: sometimes they suppose that Osiris is Serapis, sometimes Dionysus, and at other times Pluto. So too Plutarch: It is better, he says, to equate Osiris with Bacchus and Serapis with Osiris[Editorial Note 465]. And elsewhere[Editorial Note 466]: Isis and Osiris are worshipped with the combined honours of Gods and Spirits, and are endowed with great power everywhere, and with very great power over things above and below the earth. And indeed Serapis is no other than Pluto, and Isis does not differ from Proserpina, as Archimachus of Euboea pointed out, as well as Heraclides Ponticus, who judges that the Canopic oracle belongs to Pluto. And [123] Porphyry[Editorial Note 467]: Serapis is exactly the same God as Pluto, and for this reason has very great power over the Demons[Editorial Note 468]. Macrobius [124] combining the cults of Sarapis and Isis, tells us that the infernal hound, Cerberus, is usually depicted at the feet of Serapis. Alexandria, he says[Editorial Note 469], treats Serapis and Isis with a cult of almost awestruck reverence. And a little bit later: they attach a sculpture of a three-headed animal to the image of Serapis, which has on the central and largest head the features of a lion; on the right side rises the head of a dog fawning with a gentle look; but the left side is finished with the head of a ravening wolf. A Snake connects these animal figures with its coils, and its head bends back towards the right hand of the God by which the monster is restrained. By this monster the brothers of Osiris seem to be represented. And [125] Plutarch explicitly says[Editorial Note 470] that Pluto is depicted here with Cerberus. The Egyptian priests, he says, told us that the statue of Pluto sculpted with Cerberus and the Snake represents no other than Serapis, because the Egyptians endow Pluto with the name of Serapis. So too Tertullian[126]: The basket in the shape of a corn-measure with which the head of Serapis is adorned, is a reference to the gathering of corn; and it is apparent that the care of crops was his responsibility from the very ears of corn by which it is surrounded. Also beneath his right hand they depicted the dog which they believe is in the underworld, because the Egyptian mob was kept down by his strong hand. And they put Pharia beside him; the derivation of her name shows that she is the daughter of the king Pharaoh. Thus Tertullian interpreted Serapis and Pharia as Joseph[Editorial Note 472] and his wife, despite the fact that Pharia means queen of Egypt, and she herself is Isis, as Minutius Felix[Editorial Note 473] and Eusebius [127] explicitly say.

Add to this that the river Nile which they made [reading fecerunt] sacred to Osiris <78r> is that much-sung Styx of the underworld. For Diodorus, quoting some lines of Homer, says:

Παρ᾽ δ᾽ ἴσαν ὠκεανον τε ῾ροὰς[Editorial Note 475] etc, that is:

They come to the waves of Ocean, and the Leucadian[Editorial Note 476] rock

And to the gates of the sun, where dreams rule, a wandering race,

and further on they reach the grassy green meadows, which are frequented

by the shades, mere images of men, lacking life[Editorial Note 477].

After quoting this, he tells us that by Ocean here the Nile is meant, and by the gates of the sun Heliopolis, and by the meadows of the dead are meant the pastures by the Acherusian marsh near Memphis. For, he says, many grand Egyptian funerals were conducted there; they transport the corpses across the river and the Acherusian marsh, and lay them in crypts situated there. Hence also the Acheron and Charon of the Greeks. Furthermore, the whole ceremony of Osiris is a funeral ceremony, and relates to the dead, as they lament the dead person every year, seek scattered limbs and bury them, and every third year they immerse the bull Apis in the river Nile and drown him, and celebrate funeral rites to him as to the dead Osiris, alleging that the soul of Osiris settled in Apis. Mercury established images of the Gods and solemn rites during the reign of Isis. Osiris alone was dead at that time. And therefore he was honoured annually with a funeral ceremony, and subsequently made God of the dead. And this, says Plutarch [128], is because today the priests, as if hating the idea and almost hiding it for fear, signify that Osiris rules over the dead, and is no other than Dis or Pluto, it being unknown how true it is, and it disturbs the mass of people, who have a suspicion that the holy Osiris lives in the earth and under the earth, where lie the bodies lie of those who are supposed to be already deceased.

Historians trace the Kings of Egypt back to a certain Menes; c[129] they all agree that Menes was the first King of Egypt. Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Eratosthenes, and Africanus[Editorial Note 479] (from Manetho), Josephus, Eusebius and Syncellus[Editorial Note 480] all declare this with a single voice. Menes is declared to be the father of Athothis, i.e., of f[130] Theuth himself or the first Mercury, and he is therefore the Misor of Sanchoniatho. < insertion from f 77v > ✝ He perished after being seized by a r[131] Hippopotamus, as Africanus notes out of Manetho, i.e., he was assassinated by his brother Typho. For they fashioned Typho s[132] < text from f 78r resumes > with the features of a Hippopotamus; t[133] there was such a representation of him in Hermopolis. The inhabitants of Apollonopolis hate v[134] the Crocodile, because they say that Typho took on his shape. Furthermore, Menes g[135] was the first to persuade the Egyptians to live by laws, and he brought them out of their primitive manner of living, which did not require wealth and property, by revealing agriculture to them, and therefore he is Osiris. For even the name of the ox, Mnevis, <79r> who was sacred to Osiris, seems to be derived from Menes. Surely the names Μνευις[Editorial Note 484] and Μηνις[Editorial Note 485] are very close and sometimes interchanged. For the Ox Μνευις is called Μηνις by Aelian, and, vice versa, in Diodorus b[136] king Μηνις is occasionally called Μνενης[Editorial Note 486]. The same king is called Μτω[Editorial Note 487] in Herodotus and Μιναιος[Editorial Note 488] in Josephus, and is the Menaetius whom c[137] Apollodorus writes was the shepherd of Pluto, as the ox Mnevis has clearly been turned into the shepherd Menaetius. Huet e[138] also says that Menes was worshipped by some Peoples as a God, and that the Latin God, Genius, is Μτὼ[Editorial Note 490], whence Μτωες[Editorial Note 491], Aeolic Μανες[Editorial Note 492] and Latin Manes[Editorial Note 493]. The Greek Minos, who was certainly brother of Jupiter and Judge of Orcus, seems to have got his name from the same root. But it is abundantly clear from what we have said that Osiris is God of the underworld.

< insertion from f 18v >

Therefore Osiris, Antaeus, Busiris and Hercules correspond to the fours sons of Cham – Misraim, Phut, Chanaan and Chus (Genesis 10), who had their seats in Egypt, Libya, Phoenicia and Arabia. For Hercules is affirmed by all to be a son of Jupiter, and therefore he will occupy the fourth place. He is thought of as the leader of the army of Osiris, because a little while later he fought a campaign against Typho on behalf of the Egyptians. For when Typho occupied the throne of Egypt, the Egyptians fled and were scattered, until Hercules came to their aid; and for this reason Hercules lived apart with his own people.

<19r>

After Cham and his people had been settled for some time in Egypt, a[139] Diodorus and Eusebius tell us, on the basis of the Theology written by Manetho, that when Osiris had settled the affairs of Egypt and placed the administration of the whole kingdom in the hands of his wife Isis, he also gave her Mercury as counselor because he excelled all the rest of his friends in prudence. And he appointed Hercules, who was closely related to him, as general of the empire which he left ... and he appointed Busiris as governor of the areas that lie toward Phoenicia and the maritime districts, and Antaeus as governor of Ethiopia and Libya. Then he himself made a journey into Ethiopia accompanied by his brother [or rather his son] whom the Greeks call Apollo[Editorial Note 494]. This points to the division of the kingdom of Cham between his four sons, Hercules, Osiris, Antaeus and Busiris, or Chus, Misraim, Phut and Canaan. Antaeus {obtained}[Editorial Note 495] the Libyan areas, Busiris the mouths of the Nile and Phoenicia, but Hercules as the first-born had his father's seat on the east bank of the Nile and all the remaining areas. For b[140] Busiris was as much a king of Egypt as Osiris. Nor is there any doubt that the other brothers also reigned in their own seats. They made their journeys, so that each might inspect the territory allotted to him. But the Egyptians, in order to glorify their father Osiris, give him dominion over his brothers, and tell the fabulous story that he traversed the whole world. From the number, names and seats of the brothers it is evident that Busiris is Canaan. For Hercules also conquered him, exactly as Jupiter Belus conquered Vulcan, and, like Vulcan, Canaan sailed across the sea. He founded the city of Busiris in Lower Egypt as the capital of the administrative district of Busiritis. In Heliopolis, the metropolis of Lower Egypt, men were sacrificed alive, and three men were killed every day down to the times of king Amosis, who abolished this custom about two hundred years after the exodus of Israel from Egypt. This savagery was regularly ascribed by the Greeks to Busiris, who had been king there at some time in the past, as if he were a cruel and tyrannical ruler, despite the fact that he had fled from Egypt g earlier with his own people, after his defeat at the hands of Hercules. Canobus too, or Canopus, seems to have been the same God as Canaan. For d[141] the Egyptians said that Osiris was a General and Canobus a helmsman, after whom the star was named, and that the ship that the Greeks called Argo which was set among the stars in honour of the boat of Osiris, pursues a course not far from Orion and the Dog-Star[Editorial Note 496]. Hence Canobus was contemporary with Osiris and yet different from him, and therefore he was a brother of the one who had the greatest mastery of the art of sailing, i.e., Canaan. In Lower Egypt, where Canaan ruled, are also the city of Canobus and the Canopic mouth of the Nile, as well as the island of Canobus, which lies across the same mouth. The God Canobus was also depicted with a very swollen belly. And hence the name וב אוב, which signifies both womb and Pytho, who from a swollen belly, as from a womb brings forth oracles[Editorial Note 497].

< insertion from f 19v > [142]b[143] as Heraclitus relates: whence they feigned that he put on all shapes. For Proteus was king of the lower Egypt and lives in the Iland Pharos of Alexandria and was well skilled in navigation like Vulcan and therefore accounted a sea God. He was a very wise man understood nature and knew things past and to come like Prometheus. His sons were accounted cruel to strangers like Busiris and therefore Hercules destroyed them as he did Busiris with his family. He was therefore contemporary to the sons of Ham, and by consequence one of them; that son to whom all these qualifications agree. He was called the son of Neptune and Phænica because a navigator and Phænician, and Protens because πρωτος[Editorial Note 501] the first of the nation. For Orpheus calls him πρωτογενὴς[Editorial Note 502] the first man from whom sprang, saith he, the principles of all nature < text from f 19r resumes > < insertion from f 19v > He was f[144] the scribe for his father Osiris and the Counsellor of Isis and {both} scribe and disciple ‡ of his grandfather, Jupiter Hammon. For this is how in the sacred book ascribed to Hermes Isis addresses her son Horus, Pay attention, my son Horus. For you are hearing the secret thoughts which your grandfather, Camephes, heard from Hermes, who wrote short accounts of all things relating to[Editorial Note 504] all the offspring of Camephes, when he honoured him for inventing ink. And hence Mercury was called g[145] Parammon by the Ancients. < text from f 19r resumes > < insertion from f 19v > . Terra[Editorial Note 505] and Vesta among the Latins, and Titaea among the Assyrians and Atlantians, from the word טיט, which means mud, are understood to be the wife of the Assyrian Saturn, and hence of the Titans and of the sons of earth < text from f 19r resumes > < insertion from f 19v > # And on the other hand every Nation attempted to relate the resting-place of their God or Goddess to the sun or Moon or earth as the noblest of all bodies, as Macrobius explains at length. And this is how it came about that Gods or Goddesses who were different from each other, were taken to be the same; Juno, like the Syrian Goddess, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, who were all sometimes worshipped as the great mother, and also as the Moon, and hence they are confused with each other by some people[Editorial Note 506] < text from f 19r resumes > < insertion from f 19v > # Io, daughter of Inachus, fled into Egypt, and married Osiris, and was called Isis by the Egyptians. The affairs of the Greeks have no relation at all to Egyptian, Chaldaean and Assyrian Theology. ✝ < insertion from higher up f 19v > ✝ Every nation studying to honour their own ancestors they were not content to worship them them selbes but sometimes pretended them to be the Gods of other nations also, and the Egyptians also pretended that Dionysus Bacchus Adonis `and Pan were their Osiris < text from f 19v resumes > And when these things are properly noted, the Objections will for the most part disappear. < text from f 19r resumes >

<20r>

We have reported from our authors that Semiramis is the daughter of Attergatis[Editorial Note 507], but I would prefer to say that Semiramis and Allergatis are simply two names for the same Venus [On the names of Venus][Editorial Note 508] for the following reasons. 1 So long as Allergatis reigned in Syria, she was a very obscure woman, and she is not known for libidinous living there, but on the contrary a[146] she is said to have thrown herself into a lake near Ascalon in shame at having committed adultery. 3Her death in Syria is a mythical story, namely, that when she threw herself into the lake she was changed into a fish, or as others sayb[147], was saved by the fish; there is a no less mythical story about the birth of Semiramis from Derceto, namely that c[148] the infant was preserved by doves, and that is why she was called Semiramis. Semiramis was Syrian by origin, of royal birth, and when she grew up she surpassed all women in beauty, and d[149] with her physical charm, she also had a corresponding moral sophistication, and when she went to Assyria, she was celebrated above all other women for her loves and lusts, and all of this is the mark of Venus alone. e[150] When the Assyrian Caelus, i.e., Cham, was overcome by his son Saturn, (i.e., Chus), and expelled from his kingdom, after he had lived some time in exile – and it was therefore at the beginning of the fourth age – he suborned Astarte, daughter of Cupid and mother of Amor (i.e. Attergatis or Venus), to get rid of Saturn by fraud and plots. But Saturn kept the girl, who was attracted by his love and kindness, united to him in a kind of marriage. He had seven children by her, and therefore when Allergatis was sent by her father Caelus to Saturn,[Editorial Note 510] she came to Babylonia and Assyria (as will be clear from what follows), where she remained thereafter with Saturn and his sons. f[151] Semiramis likewise, having gone from Syria to Babylonia and Assyria, was at first celebrated there for her lust, and entrapped king Ninus with her beauty, so that Ninus joined her to himself in matrimony taking her away from her Husband, and did everything by her advice, and when he died, he left the kingdom to her. She made herself the most famous queen of all, and h[152] her many works were extant everywhere in Asia for a very long time, and the simple Altyr or Assyr of Alter-gatis was left as the name of the region of Allyria or Assyria where she had reigned[Editorial Note 511]. Adonis with Venus[Editorial Note 512]. Adonis was a king, as is clear from his name. For the word Adonis means lord. He is usually thought to be the same as Osiris owing to the similarity of their rites; for his ceremonies are derived from the rites of Osiris. But the Syrians and Assyrians did not worship the fathers of the Egyptians but their own. I would prefer to say that he is Ninus or Nimrod. For he was k[153] a young man, and he k[154] practised hunting. They write that Venus was passionately loved by Mars and Adonis by Venus, and they say that the boar that killed Adonis was sent against him by the jealousy of Mars. And certainly Venus was united first with Mars, i.e., Chus. By him she had some children, as has just been said, then she repudiated the old man and turned to the young one. So Ninus was passionately loved by Venus, as well as by Semiramis, down to the time of his death, and by his early demise he left both of them to survive him.

<20v>

The blank certificates of the lives of the several nominees that have paid money into the Exchequer upon the Million Act are printed by the approbation of Sir R. Honrand Auditor of the recipient of the Exchecquer and are to be sold by Sam. Heyrick at Grays In Gate in London.

<21r>

Adonis likeness of their sacred rites.. for his ceremonies seem for the most part borrowed from those of Osiris. That Venus and Adonis were Semiramis and Ninus and of the various names of Venus. If Adonis be Osiris then Venus must be Isis, which is not probable. Venus and Adonis were the Gods of the Assyrians and Syrians and these nations worshipped not the ancestors of the Egyptians but their own, as all other nations did The Venus of the Syrians or Bea Syria is by all hands allowed to be a syrian Queen the mother of Semiramis. For whilst Semiramis was contemporary to Ninus and he was the grandchild of Ham her mother Attergatis must be contemporary to the children of Ham and by the consequence was his daughter and the wife Canaan. But the question is whether the Assyrians worshipped her or her daughter Semiramis. And my reasons for the latter are these. Semiramis had all the qualifications of Venus a[155] she exceeded all weomen in beauty and a[156] had a suitable elegance of behaviour joyned with the handsomness of her body and a[157] had a husband who under the king of Assyria was Lord of all Syria and f[158] is celebrated in history above all other weomen for love and lust, and her but left him and –– a[159] with her beauty captivated Ninus the first king of Assyria and founder of that nation d[160] being by him taken from her first husband became his Queen and d[161] regined after him, and for her reign and the man b[162] the works attributed to her every where in Ais was the most famous of all the Assyrian queens that ever were. And whilst every nation worshipped its own ancestors, it is not likely that the Assyrians would neglect such a Venus of their own and worship Attegartis the ancestor of another nation an obscure woman not celebrated in history for either beauty, lust or dominion, but on the contrary c[163] was said to be so much ashamed of adultery as out of shame to throw her self into a lake of water neare Askelon. For the worship of Venus past not out of Syria into Assyria but d[164] began in Assyria and past thence into Syria as Pausanias tells us, or rather grew up in both places from the beginning but was spread by the Assyrian monarchs, e[165] by the Assyrians recconned armony and Authors tell us that Semiramis was and f[166] called f[167] Venus Βελ-εσία[Editorial Note 516], the inmortal Gods and worshipped and that she was called p[168] Dea Syria and q[169] Rhea and at Alexandria had a temple erected to her by the name of {Venus} and that the Dove which for its hot and lustfull and amorous constitution is sacred to Venus pro Christo . p. 110. Athenag. legat was by the Assyrians accounted sacred to Semiramis and if in honour to her g[170] they worshipped this bird as a Goddess and h[171] sacrificed to it. For rather they worshipped Semiramis in the bird For k[172] say they Semiramis died not but was transformed into a Dove. * < insertion from f 21v > pag. sup. * when her husband Ninus died, she put on mans apparrel and feigned her self to be the son of Ninus that she might govern: and this is agreable to the character of Venus. For a[173] Suidas tells us that she was accounted a man from the loins upwards but a woman downward And accordingly g[174] her statues were sometimes made with a beard and in armour. ‡ < insertion from lower down f 21v > ‡ Macrobius also proves out of the ancients that she was accounted of both sexes and out of Philochorus that men and weomen in worshipping her changed theirs Philochorus, saith he, asserts that she is the Moon and that men make Sacrifice to her in women's clothes, women in men's clothes; because she is thought to be both male and female. So also k[175] Iulius Firmicus tells us that the Assyrian men in worshipping Venus put on weomens aparell. And this custome was so ancient in Syria that n[176] Moses forbid it, Deut. XXII. 5. < text from f 21v resumes > And accordingly b[177] Lucian any eye witness describes in Edessa a city sacred to Iuno, the statue off Semiramis in a temple that which saith he there is none more sacred in all the east it being adorned with precious works and ancient donations and miracles and religious statues and so ancient that it was recconned erected by Semiramis her self to hermother Derceto. The statues in this Temple were three, one of Iupiter, another of Iuno in the form of the eastern Vrania with a scepter in her hand and on her head rays and a tower like the Magna Mater. These were of Gold. And between these was a third statue also of gold differing in form from the rest and some said it was Dionysus others Semiramis. But dionysus being the father of the Assyrian Iupiter was two old By the uncertainty of its sex and a Dove standing upon its head it was Semiramis and by both these circumstances and its being set up of old to the worshipped together with Iupiter and Iuno in this most sacred temple and its going twice every year to the sea (as Lucian mentions) it was the Venus of the ancients. d[178] Stephanus tells us also that Semiramis was the first that sailed in along ship For at first they used round ones. < text from f 21r resumes > Her husband or rather her lover Ninus was the great God of the Assyrians whom they worshipped by the name of Iupiter Belus, and a nation who worshipped their first king so much would not neglect his Queen or mistres who reigned both with him and after him and was as famous in history as he. Belus and Adonis are words of the same signification both signifying the Lord, and the Assyrians worshipped the Sun in them both and therefore accounted them the same God. As Nimrod was a stout man and a great hunter so was Adonis, and as Semiramis survived Ninus so did Venus survive Adonis. Ninus was the Mars of the Chaldeans and Chus of the Egyptians and these reigned in Babylonia and beyond Tigris and where Mars resided < insertion from f 21v > a[179] Suidas tells us that Semiramis was the first that found out metalls and that she committed the worship of them them to captives: and by this in vention you may know that she was Vulcans wife His inventions of sailin fishing and Metals being ascribed to them both in common. She imployed captives to work them that is not Assyrians but Phænicians those Cyclopes who made thunderbolds for her two Iupiters Chus and Nimrod. As Venus was called Atter-dag and was the proper Goddes {for} the Didonians, so Semiramis from fishing and from the city Sidon was called Sida. For Cedrenus out of the ✝ < insertion from f 21v > For a[180] they tell us that Venus loved Dionysus, but during his Indian expedition, enjoyed the company of Adonis, and at his return meeting him with a crown on head she put a crown on his and asked him to follow her because she was married. And b[181] some add that Mars, that is Dionysus, when Venus forsook him for the love of the young Adonis out of envy sent the boor which slew Adonis c[182] others that he transformed himself into boar and slew him. so then Venus lived with Mars and his sons in the parts of Babylonia and Assyria where Semiramis did and there enjoyed Adonis: who therefore being then a young man and so contemporary to the sons of chus, and being also a great Prince as his name imports and the great God of the Assyrians in whom they worshipped the Sun, could be no other then Ninus < text from f 21v resumes > g[183] ancients mentions Sida the wife of Belus < text from f 21r resumes >

<22r>

Semiramis was a feigned name taken from the Dove which was sacred to both her and Venus and so agrees alike to both. For the a[184] word signifies a mountain Dove. she had therefore another true name and I cannot meet with any true name which either she or Venus had besides Aster and in the plural Astercth Venuses, and by contraction Astart or Astarte. Vnder this name she was worshipped in Sidon from the very beginning of Idolatry in Phænicias, when the memory of the first inhabitans of that region was not yet worn out. Hence Ἀστὴρ[Editorial Note 521] the name of the morning star and afterwards of all the stars in general and perhaps in allusion to this name it was that Astarte is said to consecrate a star in Tyre a city which seems to have borrowed from thence its original name of צור Syr. Hence also came the Goddes of the ancient Saxons Aestar or Easter to whom they sacrificed in the month of April which from her was: called in their language b[185] Easter monath as it was by the latines Aprilis from Aphrodita another name of Venus. For this month was sacred to Venus. And hence also the English still call the feast of the Passover Easter. From After came Attar and Athara other names of Venus, and perhaps Attyria the name of the region where Semiramis reigned unless you had rather derive Attyr from the region. from this name came Atter-dag that is Atter the fish and by the corruption Atter-gatis, Derete, Archetis. And as from Astyr came צור Syr the oriental name of the City Tyre and Syri the name of the people so from the same fountain might come Siren, {a} monster shaped like Attergatis. For the k[186] Sirens were beautiful whores or Venuses which lived on the sea-coast and allared men to their ruin. These are the footsteps I meet with of the original true names of Venus. For all the rest of her names are feigned. As she had the name of from a fish so she had the name of Semiramis from a Dove From the places where she was worshipped she was called Cytharea, Paphia, Cypria, Cnidia. From the froth of the sea she was called b[187] Salambo by the Babylonians and thence Aphrodite by the Greeks which shews that both nations worshipped the same Goddess and that in Salambas et Hesyclius this was the sea Goddes of the Phænicians From בנח Benah a daughter or young woman, and fro in the weomen prostituted her temple called By the Chaldeans succoth Benoth (that is and by the Africans Sicca Venerea she had the name of Venus And thence it appears that the Babylonians (who were a branch of the Assyrians) worshipped the same Venus both with the Africans who were Phænicians and with the Phrygians and Latines so that the great Venus of all nations (and by consequence the Dea Syria was the Assyrian. From her dominion <22v> she was called Melitta and by the Egyptians Β{ελ}-εσία which is as much as to say that, she Venus was non that obscure woman who was feigned to be the mother of Semiramis and to live always in Phænicia but the wife or Mistres of the great Moloch and Belus of the last So then the great Venus of all nations by consequence by Dea was Syria non obscure. an obscure woman whom they feign to be the mother of Semiramis and to have lived allways in Phænicia but the great Goddess of the Assyrian monarchy.

{If}[Editorial Note 525] Semiramis, the daughter of Derceto, a lustful and bloodthirsty woman, was worshipped under the name of the Syrian Goddess, and because of Derceto[Editorial Note 526]..., the Syrians also venerate doves {because of} Semiramis (for the woman was changed into a dove, a piece of nonsense that Ctesias tells us), what wonder if some who exercised great power in a tyrannical fashion were addressed as gods by their subjects? Athenagoras, Plea for Christians, p. 121.

Among the Assyrians there once flourished exceedingly the worship of Venus, Archetis[Editorial Note 527] and Adonis, which the Phoenicians now maintain.

[Editorial Note 528] Hironus king of Tyre (contemporary to Solomon) placed a golden pillar in the Temple of Iupiter [Belus] and erected a Temple to Hercules and another to Astarte. Menander Ephesius ex Archivis Tyrijs apud Iosephum c. Ap. p. 1042 and Antiq. l. 8 c 2. p. 67. and apud Marsham p. 368. a little after Ithobabus priest of Astarte became king of Tyre. Menander ib. and apud Marsham p 408.

Baal and Asteroth the deities of the Zidonians in the days of Solomon Iezabel 1 King. II and 18. and 2 King 23. 13. and long before in the days of Samuel 1 Sam. 7. 4. and of the Iudges Iud. 2 13 and 10. 6. Asteroth the proper Goddess of Zidon from the beginning. ib.

During the period of Assyrian rule, the Scyths plundered a shrine of Venus Urania in Ascalon, a city of Palestine, the oldest of all the shrines of this goddess (so far as I know). For the temple of the same Goddess in Cyprus originated from this one, as even the Cyprians themselves say. Moreover the shrine on Cythera[Editorial Note 531] is said to have been constructed by Phoenicians from this one in Syria (Herodotus, bk. 1, p. 61).

In Tyre Herodotus found two temples of Hercules one of which the Priests then recconned as old the city Tyre and that the city was built 2000 years before the days of Herodotus. And in Thasus he saw a Temple of Hercules built by the Phaenicians who came thither with Cadmus to seek Europa. Which things, saith Herodotus declare Hercules to be an ancient God. Herod l. 2. p. 135.

The games of Hercules were observed every fifth year at Tyre. 2 Maccab. 4. 18, 19. <23r> after the mo{l}e of the Egyptian kingdoms. He named Athens after the Egyptian name of Minerva. and taught them the worship of this Egyptian Goddes. He distinguished the people into three, orders the Gentry, Soldiers and Mechanicks and as the Egyptians did. The Egyptian Gentry were their Priests. He first joyned one man and one woman according to a law in Egypt ordained by Vulcan. He first introduced the Egyptia Gods among the Greeks and as the Egyptian Priests ware linnen garments so did the Athenian. And whilst he introduced the Egyptian customes in other things we may reccon that he imitated them also in the Athenian polity of reducing many cities into one by a common council: and by consequence that the Egyptian villages towns and cities when invaded by the shepherds convened in common councils to consult their safety with great festivals for assembling the people and by means of those councils grew into kingdoms, the captains of their armies against the shepherds becoming their kings. For the remains of such Councils continued in Egypt ever till the days of Herodotus. [Editorial Note 532] The oracles are therefore similar to each other, both the one at Egyptian Thebes and this one at Dodona, and the manner of divination in the [Greek] temples was brought over from Egypt, since the Egyptians were the first to establish grand festivals, processions and supplications, and the Greeks learned from them. My argument for this is that theirs have been in existence for a long time, but those of the Greeks were instituted recently. And the Egyptians do not hold grand festivals just once a year, but frequently, all over the country, but especially and most zealously in the city of Bubastis in honour of Diana, and secondly in the city of Busiris in honour of Isis; in this city there is a very large temple of Isis, the city itself being situated in the middle of the Egyptian Delta. And Isis is the Goddess who is called Δημητηρ[Editorial Note 533] in Greek, i.e., Ceres. Third is the one in honour of Minerva at Sais. Fourthly, the one at Heliopolis in honour of the Sun. The fifth is in the city of Buto in honour of the Moon. Sixth is the one in the city of Papremis in honour of Mars. Thus far Herodotus. He then goes on to describe how large the gatherings were {n} and how many sacrifices were performed on the festal day. In Bubastis alone as many as 700,000 men and women gathered, not to mention the children.

Chapter II
Of the Original of Kingdoms

By the of Kingdoms may be understood the original of Temples

<23v>

Till the founding of this kingdom of Rome all Italy continued divided into small kingdoms, all which the Roman gradually conquered in the space of about 400 years, and which thereby became the first kingdom of great extent in Italy, and soon after by prosecuting its victories grew the greatest of the four Monarchies

Before the rise of the 4 Monarchies the Kingdom of Egypt flourished and grew great. I have new given you an account of the rise of the 4 Monarchies but The first kingdom in the world of great extent seems to have been the kingdom of Egypt for this flourished For saith Strabo Homer knew nothing of the Empires of the Medes and Assyrians other wise naming the Egyptian thebes and hers rich is and th{o}s of the Phenicians he would not have passed over in silence he the riches of Babylon Nineve and Ecbatane. and grew great before the rise of the 4 Monarchies. Homer knew nothing of Nineveh and Babylon the seals of the Assyrian Monarchy, but he celebrated Thebes the chief seat of Egypt as a very great and famous city. The occasion of the Egyptians growing {fess} into lass into a great kingdom so early was the incursions of the eastern Shepherds or Arabians who sometimes invaded the lower parts of Egypt and reigned there till the Egyptians expelled them To strengthen themselves against this common enemy it was necessary that the Egyptians should unite into bodies as great as that of the shepherds or greater. When Iacob and his sons entred Egypt Ioseph tells them that Egypt hab been invaded by them before the days of Iacob. Yet [188] Artapanus and the Chronicon Alexandrinum record that Egypt continued divided into many kingdoms till the reign of Palmanothes at Heliopolis which was about the time of Moses's birth. Between the death of Ioseph and birth of Moses the a[189] Shepherds invaded the lower partsof Aegypt anew and regined there for about 4 or 5 hundred years together till the king of Thebes assisted by the other kings of Egypt expelled them by a durable war. Soon after they invaded Egypt afresh and after 13 years were expelled again and not long after the king of Thebes became lord of all Egypt, and Sesostris (called in Scripture Shishack) which a potent army in the reign of Rehoboam the son of Solomon invaded and epoiled Iudea, Syria, Asia minor andall the kingdoms round about, there being no kingdoms in those days great enough to oppose him. And this was the first great Conqueror we read of in the world. But whilst he dissolved not the kingdoms, he conquered but only spoiled them and made them tributary, he founded not a durable and well united Empire like the four which followed, and therefore his kingdom is not recconed among them.

Sir Iohn Marsham has given us an account of the 4 principal kingdoms into which Egypt was anciently divided those at Thebes, This, Memphis and in the lower Egypt and wherever we{e} read of any other ancient and great cities of Egypt (as there are divers) we may conclude that those also were the seats of the first kingdoms. The manner how the first villages and towns of Egypt grew into kingdoms and may be understood by the constitution of the kingdom of Athens. ffor the athenians were a Colony of Egypt and Cecrops the first king of Athens was an Egyptian and formed that <24r> there we are to take for his lover Venus. ✝ the AssyrianVenus and Adonis are therefore Semiramis and Ninus, but whether the Assyrian Venus be the same with the Syrian or her daughter, that is whether Semiramis be Attergatis or the daughter of Attergatis may be still a question. And I take them to be the same for these reasons. Nothing is more frequent in antiquity then to make two Gods or Goddesses of two names and to represent one the father or mother of the other and this seems to be the case here because – – The death of Allergatis in Syria and birth of is fabulous. For a[190] they tell us that Allergatis so soon as Semiramis was born was so much ashamed of the adultery by which she had conceived her that she immediately threw her self into a lake neare Askalon (a degree of modesty not suitable to Venus) and was turned into a fish and b[191] that Semiramis was nourished andpreserved by doves. As the great Venus was married to Vulcan before she lay with Mars and was accounted both male and female so Semiramis had a husband before she lived with chus {illeg} and Ninus, we have shewed that she hu also all the Characters of the great Venus or De{m} Syria being beautifull, facecious, lustful and famous above all other weomen. semiramis and feigned her selfaman being born of syrian parents in Phaenicia neare Askelon, and so being as neare allied to the Assyrians there is no reason why the Syrians when they recived the worship of Venus from the Assyrians should change the person and instead of a woman who was the most famous of her sex and had all the qualifications of Venus, to substitute another not celebrated in history for any of those qualifications nor for any thing else. Twas more for their honour to commemorate that a Syrian reigned over the Assyrians. And c[192] Athenagoras tells us expressely that Semiramis a lustful and bloody woman was worshipped by the name of the Dea Syria The Assyrian Venus embraced first Chus (as we shewed) and then Ninus or Adonis who comparatively to her is called a youth and therefore she was old anough to be the younger daughter of Ham and wife of Canaan. Sanchoniatho tells us out of the Assyrian theology that when Caelus that is Cham was vanquished and banished by his son Saturn or Chus (which as we shall presently she{io} happened in the end of the brazen age just before Chus and his sons went into Babylonia) Caelus after some time sent his daughter Astarte a virgin to take away Saturn by fraud and treachery. taken for a woman but Saturn won her to him by courtship named her and had seven daughters of her and two sons Cupid and Love, and that Astarte according to the Phaenicians in Venus. Here Sanchoniatho is indeed mistaken in making Astarte a virgin before she lay with Saturn whereas she had a husband and children before: but this he discovers that Astarte was that famous Venus who lived with Chus and by his sons in Babylonia and the regions beyond Tigris and by consequence that she isthe same with Semiramis. And this is still further confirmed by the Atter or Aster with look from Attyria where she was worshipped. name of Attyria or Assyria which this famous Queen left to the region where she reigned. For I take her true original name to have been Astyr or Aster in the plural number Asteroth and by contraction Astart, Astarte, Hence Ἄστηρ[Editorial Note 535] the Venus and thence in general all stars and month in the feast Easter from Aster came Atter, Athara, Assyr and thence the region Attyria or Assyria Also from Assur came Sur Syriack name of the city Tyre, and Siren a monster shaped liked Atter-gatis. For the Syrens b [193] were beautiful whores or Venuses which lived neare the sea and allured men to their ruin. All the rest of the names of Venus seemed borrowed from her qualities. From fishes sacred to her her statues made below like a fish she was calld a Archetis ✝ Atter-dag that is Atter the fish and by corruption Atter-gatis, Dercete {Archetis} from Doves Semiramis which signifies a mountain Dove. From the froth of the sea Salambo by the Babylonians and Aphrodite by the Greeks. From the weomen prostituted in her temple called Succoth Benoth by the Chaldeans (that is the temple of weomen) and Sicca Venerea by the Africans she had the name of Venus. From her dominion she had the names of Βελ-εσία and Melilla And because she hid Apollo and Diana from Typhon she was called Δητὼ and Latona from <24v> λήθω and lateo. For Herodotus tells us that she was one of the first eight L{abo}na was the daughter of Saturn and tho the Greeks made her the mother of Apollo and Diana yet a[194] Herodotus informs us that the Egyptians accounted her only their nurse and preserver a[195], she hiding and saving them when Isis their mother had recommended them to her. # < insertion from the middle of f 24v > # And Tully giving the name of Asteria to Isis tells us that Asteria was the wife of Iupiter, the mother of Proserpina and the sister of Latona < text from f 24v resumes > [196] She was therefore different as well as well from Isis as from Diana and therefore being one of their first eight Gods (as a[197] Herodotus informs us) of which there are but there females Isis Venus and Diana, she be no other them. Venus. Certainly [the Egyptians while they placed Venus among the Planets and omitted all the rest of the weomen except Isis and her daughter: they seem to have had her in great honour as a woman very benign to them. Yea] the Chymists expound Latona of brass or copper, but by what authority I know not.

Iuno is sometimes taken for c[198] Isis and sometimes for the wife of Ham or Chus or Nimrod. For whoever is Iupiter, Iuno is his wife. And so Dione is the wife of Ζεὺς and Beltis of Belus of Melilla or Alitta be taken for Venus as it uses to be it is when Venus is taken for the wife of Belus and confounded with Iuno. From Alitta comes Ilithya b[199] a name of Iuno Lucina among the Romans. But Whilst the Arabians in Alla and Alitta worshipped the Sun and Moon the Latines take Lucina for the Moon and the Greeks take Ειλεί Θυια[Editorial Note 537] for Diana the daughter of Iuno. The Assyrians call Venus Mylitta, the Arabs Alilat, the Persians Mithras, as Herodotus wrote. And Scaliger derives Militta from the Chaldaic word Mylidath, which signifies Genetrix[Editorial Note 538], a very well-known epithet of Venus, and Alilat from the Arabic Halilath, which signifies the nascent Moon. From Alilat comes Ilithya, b[200] a name of Juno Lucina. For the Arabs understood by Alilat, not the Assyrian Goddess, but their own common mother, i. e., Juno.

<25r>

On the Other Egyptian Gods, Mercury, Minerva, Latona, Apollo and Diana

rEratosthenes and sManetho derive Mercury, whom the Egyptians call Thoth and the Syrians Athotes, Taautus and Annubis, from Menes, the father and first king of the Egyptians; but aa[201] Sanchoniatho, on the basis of Egyptian records, says that he was son of Misor and Misraim; you might say son of the daughter of Typho. For everyone agrees that Mercury is the son of Jupiter (i.e., Aratrius)[Editorial Note 540] and Maia, the daughter of Atlas. Minerva, who is called Sais and Athena or Than a[202] by the Egyptians, is stated to have fought vigorously in the war of the gods against the Giants; she was therefore contemporary with the sons of Cham, and therefore their sister. For she is said by Homer and others to be the daughter of Jupiter. She is said to have sprung from b[203] the Nile, because she was Egyptian. She ever remained an unmarried woman and a most chaste virgin, and therefore she was different from Isis and Venus. Isis[Editorial Note 542]. Furthermore the Chymists explain Latona as bronze, but on what authority I know not. If to the Gods we have discussed so far, we add the children of Osiris and Isis – Orus and Bubaste or Apollo and Diana, the number of twelve gods will be completed. This was not Diana of Ephesus who wore a tower on her head, but her daughter, whom they also called Proserpina and Hecate[Editorial Note 543] and Core and Luna[Editorial Note 544] and Lucina and Eileithuia[Editorial Note 545] and Prothyrea.

There is no time to answer objections. We merely note that Nations first thought up several names for the same God, then from the different names, they made different Gods; and one of them would be either father, brother, son, uncle, father-in-law or Lord of another; as Atlas was son of Neptune and brother of Ocean. # They sometimes applied the cult of one God, who was perceived to be more famous, to another God, as they applied the cult of Osiris and Isis to the Syrian Gods, Adonis and Bacchus, and sometimes to Bacchus and Venus; hence it came about that Adonis and Bacchus were understood as Osiris by most people. Also they quite often combined the stories of the Gods of one nation with the stories of the men of another; for example, the stories of the Egyptian Gods with those of Greek men, just as if all the Gods had lived in Greece. Hence we must have suspicions about legends which are told about European men or which relate to their part of the world, as when Jupiter is said to have been born in Crete, or Vulcan hurled down on to Lemnos, or Typho buried beneath Mount Etna, or that[Editorial Note 546] # When these things are duly noted, the objections will for the most part disappear.

When men are encountered who are distinguished with the names of Gods, it will not be difficult to trace their history. Certainly, when Noah reigned in the golden age and divided the lands between his sons, [19. History of the four first ages][Editorial Note 547]. <26r> {Cham}[Editorial Note 548] came with his people to Phoenicia, and from there not much later he moved to Egypt; and since lower Egypt was liable to flooding from the Nile, he {settled in} the Thebaid on the eastern {bank?} {with}[Editorial Note 549] his grandson Thoth: At that time, he says, the King of the whole of Egypt was [204] Chamus in the great city of the Upper part of the country which the Greeks call Egyptian Thebes; the God himself they call Hammon[Editorial Note 550]. Hence Egypt was once called Chamia or f[205] Chemia and in g[206] the holy scriptures the land of Cham; also Suidas, s.v. Χὰμ[Editorial Note 552], the habitation of Cham; and Isidore[Editorial Note 553] writes that down to his time Egypt was called Cham in the Egyptian language. This then was where Jupiter Hammon ruled in the silver age, until he divided his lands among his sons in the four quarters of the winds, as has been shown above. So begins the bronze age, and shortly afterwards his sons undertook journeys to explore their allotted territories. Meanwhile Misraim or Osiris had p[207] raped Maia, the daughter of his brother Phut, and by her had a son, Anubis or Thoth, and after a number of years, p[208] q[209], when Misraim had returned from a journey and had ruled already for twenty eight years, Phut or Typho, on the 17th of the month Athyr, shut up his brother in a chest after receiving him at a banquet and throws him into the river Nile. Isis goes wandering in search of her dead husband, finds the chest which had been carried down to the sea p[210] through the Tanaitic mouth of the Nile and had been washed up on the shore, and having found it carries it away and buries it in a field at night. p[211]q[212] Typho coming by chance upon it cuts the body into many parts, and together with p[213] {his men} to the number of seventy two, of whom q[214] twenty six were adult males, he makes an attempt on the throne of Egypt. Isis q[215] gathers up the scattered parts and buries them, and r[216] entrusts her children, Orus and Bubastis, to her sister Latona. The Egyptians flee, and Latona withdraws with her youngsters to an island in the Nileb[217], and hides them in the city of Buto. Hence a[218] Diodorus says, in speaking about the inhabitants of the interior of Africa: the story is that after making an assault at some time on Egypt they wiped out the inhabitants over a great part of the land. Typho wanders over the whole of Egypt in search of the fugitives. Jupiter Hammon, on the advice of Minerva, summons his son Chus, or Hercules, to the help of the Egyptians. For it is agreed by all, says c[219] Diodorus, that Hercules brought help to the heavenly Gods in the battle of the Giants.p[220] A battle with clubs of several days duration takes place; it took place q[221] by the river Nile near the town of Antaea[Editorial Note 554] in the part of Arabia which lies between the Red Sea and the Nile. Typho and his forces are overcome, and p[222] he is handed over in bonds to Isis. q[223] Isis assumes the kingship with her son Orus. p[224] Isis releases Typho. p[225] Again and yet again there is fighting. And Venus was wounded by a mortal hand. Hercules, being put into bonds by the sons of Typho, Otus and Ephialtes, is stealthily liberated by Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, who loosed his bonds thirteen months later, after Typho's wife had revealed the place where he was held. Then Mercury settles all the disputes, and that is why he is said to have brought serpents who were struggling with each other to peace by throwing his caduceus between them, and it is in memory of this that he has snakes on the caduceus. Then Hercules, as agreed, it seems, escorts Typho to the farthest parts of Africa and after placing columns there as a memorial to the action, left Typho, who is also Antaeus and Atlas, in that seat, and after visiting Spain, returns to his own people on the Arabian side of the Nile. Hence Hercules is pictured with a cup on which he crossed the sea, because at the beginning they made use of vessels of that kind for sailing. And Antaeus from then on rules Mauritania from the city of Tingis which he founded, and under the name of Atlas is feigned to have held up the sky on his shoulders because of the great height of the mountain. <26v> The war of the Gods having been settled in this way, a[226] Isis rules peacefully, relying on the counsels of Mercury, b[227] gives laws to the Egyptians, and c[228] institutes the worship of her husband, Osiris. Mercury too d[229] invented numbers and calculation and Astronomy [Editorial Note 556] numbers and calculation[Editorial Note 557], observed the order of the stars, and in accordance with that order f[230] he gave the names of his own relatives to them – Aster, Thoth, Orus, and Bubastis or Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth[Editorial Note 558], Venus, Mercury. And to Isis and Orus, who were now ruling, were dedicated the two prominent bodies of the earth and the sun, of the Sun and the Moon, Apollo and Diana. Pan is left out, but will occur among the four remaining Gods after whom the elements are subsequently named. Hence it came about that those men later in the Planets and the elements.[Editorial Note 559] Mercury also fashioned iconic images g[231] of his relatives according to the age which each one was at the time, so that Saturn was a sullen old man, Jupiter a man in the prime of life but moving towards old age, r[232] with a Beard, Mars or Hercules a man of very robust age with a club, Isis a grown woman with two children, Apollo and Diana, Venus, a young and very beautiful woman with a son, Mercury still younger, Apollo a beardless boy, and Diana the youngest. And he depicts each of them with wings because of the motion of the planets. He gave a club to Hercules. And these images, when they were finally introduced into the temples, at the beginning gave a sistrum[Editorial Note 560] to Isis, a caduceus[Editorial Note 561] and a dog's face to himself, ram's horns to Jupiter, because he was a shepherd, a sickle to Saturn as a Farmer. And these images, etc. for the worship of Idols. And although Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, and perhaps Cupid, later grew older, their ages, once engraved in these images, remained the same in the pagan Theology. Further, Mercury and others also assigned their own unique animal to each one, to define their iconic qualities [19 second part of the History][Editorial Note 562], e.g. a ram to Ammon because he was a shepherd, a Bull to Osiris, and a Cow to Isis because of the invention of the plough; a Fish to Venus for the art of of sailing and of catching fish, as well as a Dove because of her loves; a Dog and a Dog's head to himself because of his intelligence; a Hawk to Apollo because of his hot temper and remarkably acute sight; a Goat to Chus because of his lusts and rustic life; a cat to Diana for her eyes which shine at night like the Moon. And this is how it came about that the Egyptians were depicted with the features of such animals, like Cham with the face and horns of a ram, Chus with goats' feet, Mercury with a dog's head, and different ones with different heads, as we may see in the Tablet of Isis[Editorial Note 563]; and that in the Egyptian temples images k[233] of these animals (like apes or storks or goats or cats) were placed as Gods; and that the Egyptians held the living animals themselves in the highest honour as sacred to the Gods. Hence finally it came about that the poets and n[234] populace of Egypt, combining the invention of these images with the war of the Gods, imagined that all the Gods fled into Egypt when a the giants assaulted heaven, and there hid themselves under different animal forms, until Jupiter sent the Giants headlong into Tartarus or the region of Ocean with his thunderbolt, i.e. by war, and that these shapes are still attributed to the Gods.

After Isis and Osiris had reigned for some time, another war arose in this manner. Hercules entering the house of his mother Titaea, — the second part of the History[Editorial Note 564].

<27r>

Hercules entering the house of his mother lay with her, a[235] {illeg}. A memorial to that deed survived down to the time of Herodotus in the temple constructed there, as also in b[236] the mysteries of Ceres among the Phrygians. Iside.[Editorial Note 566] The conflicts between the parents of Hercules. His mother is hung up by his father, c[237][Editorial Note 569] Jupiter Hammon, with heavy anvils tied to both feet, then d[238] when she was released by Vulcan, she sets out for Laconia and stirs up conflicts with her complaints. Hercules with his people e[239] attacks the Egyptians in war, he kills f[240] Orus by drowning him in the river Nile, and g[241] he deprived his father Hammon of his kingdom, as well as his brother h[242] Vulcan[Editorial Note 573]. In this war i[243] Vulcan was struck in the foot, and thereafter walked with a limp; f[244] Bubaste, grieving for her brother, threw herself headlong from a roof, f[245] Isis rushes about seized with fury, and soon meets her end. And then p[246] Mercury and Minerva, in order to free Egypt from tyranny, give counsel to Hercules to attack the east by having iron shields fabricated by Vulcan. And now begins the age of iron

Hercules therefore a[247] sends Vulcan to Mount Caucasus to seek out metals, then when the shields have been made, he sets off for the east,b[248] conquers the descendants of Shem, sails as far as India by way of the Persian Gulf in order to explore and reconnoiter all the lands about that vast area, returns in the third year [meets Venus as she is arriving from Phoenicia], and after dividing the new lands among his sons, institutes the annual triumphal procession which they called the Bacchic Orgies[Editorial Note 576]. Then he himself settled in Susiana, which from then on has been called Chus and Cuth and Chusestan and Kissia. Babylon went to Nimrod as the bravest of the sons, the others obtained the other seats around the Persian Gulf. Not content with his allotment, Nimrod later invaded Assyria with the help of his father, and fixed his seat there. Meanwhile Jupiter Hammon, having noticed that the war of the Giants had its origin in the lust of Osiris when he debauched his brother's daughter, Maia, and that the most recent wars arose from Hercules' lust for his own mother, in hatred and contempt for lust as the root of all evils, k[249] he lops his own genitals (i.e., the foreskin), and used force to compel all his allies to do the same thing. And this custom remained in force throughout Egypt right down to Christian times. But the Phoenicians did not do this, and therefore they were no longer in the empire of Cham; they had retreated before Hercules in the war, from Egypt to Mount Caucasus and from there into Phoenicia. {illeg} And such is the history of the first four[Editorial Note 577]

This is how the fables of the Ancients arose, a large number of fables. As that Hercules got rid of Busiris, that Hercules and Bacchus took their army as far as India. That a[250] Vulcan < insertion from f 26v > bringing help to his mother, who had been put in chains by Jupiter (i.e., the Chaldaic Jupiter), from heaven —— < text from f 27r resumes > was thrown down from heaven by Jupiter (i.e. the Chaldaic Jupiter), and was lamed by the fall, and b[251] subsequently made thunderbolts for Jupiter, and was brought back to heaven p[252] by Jupiter, that Vulcan was bound to Mount Caucasus because he had fashioned Pandora, and was released by Hercules. That Jupiter (i.e. the Chaldaic Jupiter) deposed his father Saturn, who was devouring his children and swallowed a wrapped-up stone instead of Jupiter; and he cut off his genitals, from which, when they were cast into the sea, Venus sprang forth. Conceive that she arose from the sea at the time when she met Hercules after setting out from Phoenicia for Babylon; and that Saturn devoured his son Pluto, who was killed in his kingdom, and his son Neptune by making war against him; and next he would have devoured Jupiter in war, if Jupiter {fighting with cudgels and stones[Editorial Note 578]} had not overcome him. It is the same thing in the Assyrian Theology when Saturn expelled his father Caelum, who was devouring his children, from his throne, and hurled the genitals he had cut off into the sea, from which came forth Venus. Add to this that Jupiter (the Chaldaic Jupiter) divided the world between himself and his brothers, and gave himself the kingdom of the sky, that is, the highest kingdom, ‡ < insertion from f 26v > ‡ This Jupiter (the Chaldaic) divided the world between himself and his brothers and gave himself the kingdom of the sky, that is, the highest kingdom, to Neptune he gave the kingdom of the sea, i.e. the Atlantic kingdom, and to Pluto and the dead Osiris he gave the kingdom of the underworld. For Ceres, i.e. Isis, is said by p[253] Apollodorus to be the sister of three brothers, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, who divided the world between them. q[254] Diodorus, following the Assyrian Theology, puts Saturn for Jupiter, when he says that Uranus had three sons, Saturn, Hyperion and Atlas, and that after Hyperion (whom we have proved to be Osiris) was removed from their midst, Atlas and Saturn, children of Caelum, divided the kingdom between them. And the regions bordering the Ocean fell by lot to Atlas. < text from f 27r resumes >

<27v>

He called the peoples there Atlantians after his own name. But Saturn, whose impiety and greed were outrageous, begat Olympian Jupiter, i.e.[Editorial Note 579] Nimrod, who showed himself to be fair and humane to all men. They say that he overcame his father Saturn, and had the whole world under his control, which is rather to be understood of the Chaldaic Jupiter. Finally we must add the fable of Pandora. In the Theology[Editorial Note 580] d[255]

Pandora is held to be the same as Rhea, wife of the Assyrian Saturn. I would prefer to say that she is the wife of the Chaldaic Saturn, i.e., Cham. For Pandora was ... of women[Editorial Note 581] [a[256] freed her from the anvils][Editorial Note 584]. She was fashioned, i.e., she was artificially made[Editorial Note 585], deceitful, insincere. She approaches Epimetheus with a small box[Editorial Note 586] full of every evil, i.e. she approaches him with guileful words, which are the cause of the greatest evils. c[257] For formerly men lived on earth without evils and troublesome diseases, but the woman removing the lid of the vase with her hands scattered among men grave cares, innumerable evils[Editorial Note 588], i.e. by venting all sorts of complaints, she persuaded Epimetheus to undertake a war against the Egyptians, which was the cause of all the troubles. Then Prometheus, because of the discovery of fire, is bound to Mount Caucasus in order to search for metals. His heart is gnawed by a Vulture, because this was the bird of g[258] Mars and flew to scenes of carnage. He is liberated by Hercules when he is returning to Phoenicia after the arms have been forged. Typho[Editorial Note 589].

Hence too a[259] the story that Antaeus lies in Tingi in Libya and when the tomb was opened, Sertorius came upon a body sixty cubits long. But in order to give a specious explanation for the fires in Mount Etna and the noxious exhalations from Lake Sirbonis near Mount Casius, and for the frequent earthquakes in Syria, others feign that either Typhoeus vomits out fire as he lies under Etna, or being in Lake Sirbonis, breaths out exhalations, or that d[260] Jupiter beats the ground with a great deal of noise around Typhoeus and shakes the land among the Aramoi [Editorial Note 590], in Aram or Syria, where they say the resting-place of Typhoeus lies. They say that Typhoeus was not killed by Jupiter but buried alive[Editorial Note 591] < text from f 79r resumes >

[Editorial Note 1] Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 6.4.35-37.

[Editorial Note 2] The Latin translates the Greek word κανονα 'ruler'; modern editors prefer the alternative MS reading κανουν 'basket'.

[Editorial Note 3] Or Berossus. Scholar of third century BC, who wrote a Babylonian history in Greek. See Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD), 3rd. edition, pp. 239-40.

[Editorial Note 4] This sentence is repeated at f 50r.

[Editorial Note 5] Cf. Plutarch, 'On Isis and Osiris', in Moralia 2.366F.

[Editorial Note 6] I do not know what 'emissarios' means in this context. I am following the Greek text and the French translation in the Budé edition, ed. Camelot et al, vol. 3(?), p. 134.

[Editorial Note 7] 'Musagetas', = Greek Μουσαγετας, a cult title of Apollo.

[Editorial Note 8] Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio [Commentarium in Somnium Scipionis], 2.3.

[Editorial Note 9] Plato, Republic, 617B.

[Editorial Note 10] Hesiod, Theogony, 79.

[Editorial Note 11] η δροφερεστατη εστιν απασεων.

[Editorial Note 12] Cicero, On the Republic, 6.17.17 (from the 'Dream of Scipio').

[Editorial Note 13] canendo, 'singing'.

[Editorial Note 14] This quotation from Cicero's Dream of Scipio is quoted in Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, 1.17. There is something wrong with the Latin text as it stands, and I can't quite put it right. I have translated it as if it were something like: 'vid. Somn. Scip. {citatum} in Macrobio somn. scip. l. 1 c. 17', but this seems to be too far from the transcript.

[1] Macrobius, Dream of Scipio, bk. 2, ch. 3.

[Editorial Note 15] Perhaps Diodorus Siculus, Library, 1.11.

[Editorial Note 16] This looks like Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 1.10-11.

[Editorial Note 17] Horapollo, Hieroglyphica (see Newton's note 43), first printed in 1505 along with Aesop's Fables, and frequently reprinted. Apparently identical with the Ωραπολλων described by Suidas, Lexicon, ed. Adler, in vol. 4, ω 159.

[2] Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 3, ch. 4.

[Editorial Note 18] This report about Chaeremon by Porphyry is found, as Newton indicates in his endnote, in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 3.4, 92b. Chaeremon was an Alexandrian scholar who was a tutor to Nero.

[Editorial Note 19] Preparation, 1.6, 17b.

[Editorial Note 20] This looks like Preparation, 1.9, 33a.

[Editorial Note 21] Wisdom of Solomon, 13.2.

[Editorial Note 22] Herodotus, History, 2.50.

[Editorial Note 23] The notorious Greek use of the word 'barbari'.

[Editorial Note 24] Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess, 1.

[Editorial Note 25] Lucian, On Astrology

[Editorial Note 26] Herodotus, History, bk. 2.

[Editorial Note 27] Plato, Epinomis, 987A.

[Editorial Note 28] Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, 1.19.2.

[Editorial Note 29] Sir John Marsham, Canon chronicus Aegyptiacus, Ebraicus, Graecus, et disquisitiones ... Lipsiae 1676. Harrison 1036.

[Editorial Note 30] 'Quinta essentia'. I do not understand the distinction between Terra and Tellus, nor the meaning of adumbrata.

[Editorial Note 31] Natural Philosophy?

[Editorial Note 32] Philastrius, Bishop of Brescia, author of De Haeresibus (1539).

[Editorial Note 33] Herodotus, History, 2.82.

[Editorial Note 34] 'Dii Consentes'italicor 'Dei Consentes'. Newton also gives the Greek: Θεοι Βουλαιοι.

[Editorial Note 35] ραβδοφοροι, Lictores.

[Editorial Note 36] Indigetes is an obscure divine title, perhaps applied only to local Gods. Semo was perhaps originally a Sabine hero and god. OCD, pp. 755 and 1383.

[Editorial Note 37] I have not been able to locate this allegedly Ennian couplet, either in the fragments of Ennius' Euhemerus poem, printed in the Loeb volume, Remains of Old Latin, vol. 1, pp. 414-31, or in Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 1.14, or in Isidore, Etymologiae (Origines), 8.11-42. 'De Diis gentium'.

[Editorial Note 38] Plato, Phaedrus, 246e.

[Editorial Note 39] Horapollo, Hieroglyphica (see Newton's note 43), first printed in 1505 along with Aesop's Fables, and frequently reprinted. Apparently identical with the Ωραπολλων described by Suidas, Lexicon, ed. Adler, in vol. 4, ω 159.

[Editorial Note 40] Newton translates these words in the sentence that follows.

[Editorial Note 41] Diodorus, Library, 1.12.7.

[3] On the City of God, bk.

[4] On the City of God, bk.

[Editorial Note 42] Augustine, On the City of God, 4.10, quoting Virgil, Georgics, 2.325-6.

[Editorial Note 43] This seems to be Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 3, ch. 1. I don't know what the interpolated word 'truth' is doing in the title. This passage is repeated at the beginning of ch. 2.

[Editorial Note 44] Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, 1.11.

[Editorial Note 45] See the second paragraph of ch.2: 'cum Ennius Saturnum omisisset'.

[Editorial Note 46] Ovid, Fasti, 1.39. Numa Pompilius was the second king of Rome. He is said to have added January and February to the year; see Fasti, 1.27-44.

[Editorial Note 47] aphros. Aphrodita.

[Editorial Note 48] I can't make sense of the title.

[Editorial Note 49] This paragraph repeats material from the end of ch. 1.

[Editorial Note 50] This clause which I have put in square brackets is an interpolation. It breaks up a sentence. I wonder if 'Geogr' is a reference to Bochart's Geographia Sacra, which Newton cites elsewhere.

[Editorial Note 51] Aetna is the Latinised form of Greek Αιτνα.

[Editorial Note 52] Cf. f 40r (ad fin.).

[Editorial Note 53] This passage is disjointed.

[Editorial Note 54] 'understand Jupiter of the Chaldaeans' is inserted into the sentence ungrammatically. The square brackets are mine.

[Editorial Note 55] Ovid, Fasti, 1.39.

[Editorial Note 56] aphros

[Editorial Note 57] Aphrodita

[Editorial Note 58] This word 'Mensem' is displaced to the beginning of the previous sentence.

[Editorial Note 59] Scholar of the second century AD, who composed a Phoenician history, allegedly based upon Sanchuniathon, portions of which are preserved in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel. The present quotation is found at Preparation, 1.9, 32d-33a. [Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, translated by Edwin Hamilton Gifford (1903; reprinted, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House 1981)].

[Editorial Note 60] This seems to be Newton's usual spelling of this name. It is a Latinised form. There are several variants in the typescript. The Greek form, normally now used, is Sanchuniathon.

[Editorial Note 61] Newton owned Samuel Bochart, Geographia Sacra, Frankfurt 1681 (Harrison 231).

[Editorial Note 62] παγΓενέτωρ pangenetor γενάρχης genarches.

[Editorial Note 63] Μητήρ μέν τε θεων ἠδὲ θνητων ἀνθρώπων Meter men te theon ede thneton anthropon. In the Hymn to Rhea in Orphica, ed. Abel (1885), 14.9.

[Editorial Note 64] Terentianus Maurus, a grammarian of the late second century AD. Newton's quotation can be found in his work, De literis, De Syllabis, and De metris, line 1894, in Keil, ed., Grammatici Latini, vol. 6, p. 382.

[5] a

[6] b

[Editorial Note 65] This is the transcription of the Hebrew word for wine; see f 16r below.

[Editorial Note 66] 'wine'.

[Editorial Note 67] Insert 'was called' (e.g. vocata est/dicta est) in the brackets?

[Editorial Note 68] This is a guess, as if the text were 'et fructus terrae ei tamquam authori germinationis'.

[Editorial Note 69] Another guess: 'Quemadmodum autem Canaan a prytaneis Ηεφαιστος, sic etiam'. I am guessing that prytaneis conceals the puros tameion that occurs in the diplomatic version of a similar passage below at f 13v (ad fin.). Cf. my n. 93 below.

[Editorial Note 70] Abydenus, author of a History of the Assyrians, mentioned by Eusebius. The incident in the text occurs at Preparation, bk. 9, ch. 14, 416a-c.

[Editorial Note 71] This sentence continues at the top of f 14r; 13v is an interruption.

[Editorial Note 72] This is a quotation from Tibullus, Elegies, 1.7.18. 'Pigeons were sacred to the Syrian Goddess Astarte or Ashtaroth, identified by the Greeks with Aphrodite' (Selections from Tibullus and Propertius, ed. G.G. Ramsay (Oxford: Clarendon 1887), p. 139).

[Editorial Note 73] A scholar of the second century AD who composed in Greek a Phoenician history; fragments are preserved in Eusebius. See Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd. ed., p. 1168.

[Editorial Note 74] Repetition in text: docent semipiscem fuisse docent.

[Editorial Note 75] 'Sphaera': something like an orrery or perhaps a star-map.

[Editorial Note 76] There seems to be a word or two missing e.g. 'nati sunt'.

[Editorial Note 77] This short paragraph, which I have enclosed in square brackets, is an interpolation which interrupts the sentence beginning 'Inde' and continuing with 'ignis sacer' ('Hence the holy fire ...').

[Editorial Note 78] Genesis 9.25.

[Editorial Note 79] I am not sure of the meaning of this word ('Charistica') as a grammatical term.

[Editorial Note 80] Virgil, Georgics, 3.5: quis aut Eurysthea durum / aut illaudati nescit Busiridis aras?

[Editorial Note 81] Sir John Marsham, Canon chronicus Aegyptiacus, etc. (Lipsiae 1676). Harrison, 1036.

[Editorial Note 82] I can't get this out completely, but the mention of a 'scholiast' in the diplomatic version suggests there may be an author concealed here. I suggest it is Apollonius Rhodius. Newton refers to these scholia also in the 'insertion from f 3v'. The scholiast seems to be explaining the meaning of puros tameion, as a storeroom where a fire is maintained. Hestia is goddess of the hearth-fire, and other sacred flames.

[Editorial Note 83] Hephaistos [for Ephaisos]. But the god Hephaistos should be spelt with an initial eta (Ηφαιστος).

[Editorial Note 84] This passage also occurs at f 48r below.

[Editorial Note 85] It seems that, by a rather abrupt transition, the subject has changed to Saturn.

[Editorial Note 86] Newton usually writes Chamus.

[Editorial Note 87] Herodotus, History, 2.42. The nine books of Herodotus' History are named after the nine Muses. Thus 'Euterpe' is Book 2.

[Editorial Note 88] Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris. Available with translation in Moralia, vol. 5 (Loeb edition). The best edition in English is Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, ed. J. Gwyn Griffiths (University of Wales Press, 1970); it contains an English translation.

[Editorial Note 89] Author of a Lexicon, probably of the fifth century AD:

[Editorial Note 90] Ammous ho Zeus, Aristelei.

[Editorial Note 91] This seems to be a false reference.

[7] ✝ Chamus

[Editorial Note 92] Cf. f 15r.

[Editorial Note 93] On f 15r this is written as 'Amon de No'.

[8] a See Bochart, Geography, bk. 1, ch. 1.

[9] b Steph

[Editorial Note 94] Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica, s.v. Αμμωνια..

[Editorial Note 95] Lucan, Pharsalia, 9.518-19.

[Editorial Note 96] Cf. the top of f 11r.

[Editorial Note 97] See my n. 99.

[Editorial Note 98] Ammoun.

[Editorial Note 99] See my nn. 101, 102.

[Editorial Note 100] This seems to be a false reference.

[10] b See Bochart, Geography, bk. 1, ch. 1.

[11] a Steph

[Editorial Note 101] Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica, s.v. Αμμωνια.

[Editorial Note 102] Lucan, Pharsalia, 9.518-19.

[Editorial Note 103] This passage seems to come from Eusebius, Preparation, 1.10, 36c, which is an extract from Philo of Byblos who is paraphrasing Sanchuniathon.

[Editorial Note 104] The name is 'Baetylus' in Eusebius, Preparation, 1.10. See also the discussion of baetyli, a type of stone, in the parallel passage below (f 36r).

[Editorial Note 105] Newton seems sometimes to write the nominative of this name as Caelum, sometimes as Caelus. It is of course the Latin for 'sky', and either form is acceptable.

[Editorial Note 106] Sito. From Greek σιτος sitos = corn or wheat. This too is in Eusebius, 1.10.

[Editorial Note 107] Should this be 'father', pater? See above, f 13v ad init.

[Editorial Note 108] It looks as if there should be another name in here. I am not at all confident about this passage.

[Editorial Note 109] Strabo, Geography, 15.1.11.

[Editorial Note 110] Cicero, On the Republic, 6.20.21.

[Editorial Note 111] Fourth century author of a treatise on astrology, Mathesis. He later converted to Christianity and wrote Concerning the Error of Profane Religion. See OCD, p. 598.

[Editorial Note 112] [Aristotle], De Mundo, 392b22 ff.

[Editorial Note 113] Herodotus, History, 1.203.

[Editorial Note 114] This seems to be put more clearly at f 40r.

[Editorial Note 115] Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 62, 376B. Something seems to have dropped out from Newton's text here, or perhaps he did not complete his quotation. Plutarch says: 'Typhon, as we have already said (367D; 371B-C) is called Seth, Bebon and Smu, names that try to express some violent or hindering restraint or opposition or turning back.'

[Editorial Note 116] 'suffocat' for 'demersos suffocat', as in f 44v and elsewhere?

[Editorial Note 117] Poseidon para to posin dounai. 'Poseidon is derived from giving a drink'. Poseidon is the Roman Neptune.

[Editorial Note 118] There follows a folio comprising two blank pages numbered '16ar' and '16av'.

[12] a Sync. p. 91.[Editorial Note 119]

[Editorial Note 119] I would think the author is George Syncellus, to whom Newton refers also in nn. 136 and 149 in the Latin version.

[13] a Pliny[Editorial Note 120], bk. 34, ch. 7, Arnobius, bk. 3.[Editorial Note 121]

[Editorial Note 120] All references to Pliny are to the Elder Pliny's Natural History. The chapter numbers of the edition of the Elder Pliny's Natural History which Newton was using do not correspond with the chapter numbers of modern editions.

[Editorial Note 121] Arnobius, Adversus Nationes. Newton's title in notes 212 and 215 (See Latin version) is Adversus Gentes.

[Editorial Note 122] For Terentianus Maurus see n. 15. Terentianus is quoting Septimius Serenus, a fragmentary minor poet of the second or third century AD.

[14] b Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 9.

[Editorial Note 123] This sentence seems to tail off into the parenthesis.

[Editorial Note 124] A nome is an administrative district of Egypt.

[15] a Pliny, bk. 6, ch. 24.

[Editorial Note 125] Pliny 6.24.

[16] b Herodotus and Pomponiu{s}[Editorial Note 126].

[Editorial Note 126] Pomponius Mela, De chorographia.

[Editorial Note 127] Likely Herodotus 2.156.

[17] c Herodotus and Diodorus[Editorial Note 128]

[Editorial Note 128] Diodorus, Library of History.

[Editorial Note 129] Likely Herodotus 2.91.

[18] d Heliodorus[Editorial Note 130], bk. 2.

[Editorial Note 130] Aethiopica.

[Editorial Note 131] I suspect the father is Antaeus. See the quotation from Ovid, Metamorphoses, 9. 183-84 at the 'insertion from f 32v' below.

[Editorial Note 132] Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.113.

[Editorial Note 133] Cf. diplomatic text: Saturnus in regione Babylonis quae ad Semi Seu Plutonis ditionem pertinebat ... 'Saturn in the region of Babylon which belonged to the empire of Shem or Pluto ...'

[19] a Hyginus[Editorial Note 134] in the passage cited below.

[Editorial Note 134] Hyginus, Fabulae.

[Editorial Note 135] Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.127.

[Editorial Note 136] Diodorus, Library, 1.17.3. This passage is also quoted in 19r and elsewhere.

[Editorial Note 137] This seems not to be a complete sentence.

[Editorial Note 138] This passage occurs also at f 73r.

[Editorial Note 139] A fragment. I could not complete it by looking at the diplomatic text.

[20] a Diodorus, bk. 3

[Editorial Note 140] The correct citation is given in the repetition of this passage on f 76r ad init.

[Editorial Note 141] Cf. 76r.

[Editorial Note 142] Diodorus, Library, 1.13.4.

[Editorial Note 143] Diodorus, Library, 1.27.3-5.

[Editorial Note 144] 'Sanchuniathon is cited by Philon of Byblos as a pre-Trojan War authority for his Phoenician History (preserved in Eusebius).' (OCD, p. 1352). See Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 1.9.22 ff. (1.9, 31d in Gifford). The fragments are collected in Jacoby, FGrH 790. The passage in the text here occurs at Eusebius, Preparation, 1.10, 39d. Isiris is spelt Eisirius in Gifford's translation, vol. 1, p. 4, which would represent the Greek spelling. By the end of the paragraph Newton seems to be equating him with Osiris.

[Editorial Note 145] 'Punic', 'Phoenicians'. Newton also discusses this passage at f 74r.

[Editorial Note 146] Staphanus of Byzantium was a sixth century grammarian; his book is now known as Ethnica. See OCD, p. 1442.

[Editorial Note 147] Χνα, ουτως η φοενικη εκαλειτο. το εθνικον ταυτης Χναος.

[Editorial Note 148] Eusebius, Preparation, 1.10, 35d-36a.

[Editorial Note 149] 'Countryside' and 'Farmer'.

[21] ✝ Mag or Magae[Editorial Note 150]

[Editorial Note 150] I don't understand this. Are we sure about the text here?

[22] ✝Thooth

[Editorial Note 151] Pliny, Natural History, 5.2.

[Editorial Note 152] Lucan, Pharsalia, 4.589-90.

[Editorial Note 153] Plutarch, Lives, 'Sertorius', 9.3-4.

[Editorial Note 154] Gaius Iulius Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium, 24.1.

[Editorial Note 155] Benedictus Arias Montanus. I haven't identified this work.

[Editorial Note 156] Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 1.132 (Loeb).

[Editorial Note 157] Is this his Onomasticon?

[23] Plutarch, in Isis; Diodorus, bk. 1; Herodotus, bk. 2.

[Editorial Note 158] Repetition in text.

[Editorial Note 159] Presumably this should read 'Nile'.

[Editorial Note 160] Ovid, Metamorphoses, 9.183-4.

[24] Metamorphoses, bk. 5

[Editorial Note 161] Newton writes 'Soror' 'Sister' probably by dittography from the previous line.

[Editorial Note 162] Ovid, Metamorphoses, 5.319-31 (Loeb translation).

[Editorial Note 163] Photius, Bibliotheca, 444a.

[Editorial Note 164] In this final clause I give the sense of the passage from Photius' Greek; the Latin seems to have some words missing.

[25] a Plutarch, Isis

[Editorial Note 165] Plutarch, On Isis, 32, 363e-f.

[26] b See also Herodotus, bk. 2 and Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 5.

[Editorial Note 166] Herodotus, History, 2.50. The Greek text of the second sentence in modern editions is substantially different.

[27] a Moschus in 'Europa'[Editorial Note 167]

[Editorial Note 167] Moschus' short poem, 'Europa' can be found in Greek Bucolic Poets (Loeb Classical Library), p. 429 ff.

[28] b Diodorus, bk. 1.

[29] Eusebius, Chronica

[Editorial Note 168] Theseus huios tou Attikou Aigeos, 'Theseus, son of Aegeus of Attica.'

[Editorial Note 169] I could not easily find the source of these lines.

[30] d Attic Nights, bk. 14, ch. 21[Editorial Note 170].

[Editorial Note 170] The correct reference seems to be 15.21. Cf. my note above. Though chapter and section numbers quite often vary between seventeenth century and modern editions, book numbers rarely do.

[Editorial Note 171] Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 15.21.1. This differs from Newton's reference to A. Gellius, bk. 14, ch. 21.

[Editorial Note 172] The reference appears to be mistaken. In any case, apparently, Homer does not use the word eurusternos. He sometimes calls Poseidon eurusthenes, 'mighty'.

[31] g Diodorus, bk. 5

[32] h in Isis

[33] i Georgics, bk. 1

[Editorial Note 173] 'claramque Lycaonis Arcton', Virgil, Georgics, 1.138.

[34] k Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 17. [Editorial Note 174]

[Editorial Note 174] Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.17.36 ff.

[Editorial Note 175] Latin and Greek names respectively for the constellation of the Bear, I believe.

[Editorial Note 176] i.e., star-map, or orrery, as above, n. 86.

[Editorial Note 177] Κυρηνη τ᾽ευιππος,Αμυκλαιων γενος ανδρων.. Kyrene t'euippos, Amyclaion genos andron.

[Editorial Note 178] Herodotus, History, bk. 4.

[Editorial Note 179] Maximus of Tyre, Philosophical Orations, 17.2.

[35] b Diodorus, bk. 3.

[Editorial Note 180] Diodorus, Library, 1.21.4.

[Editorial Note 181] Eusebius, Preparation, 1.10, 36a-c.

[Editorial Note 182] Sky and Earth.

[Editorial Note 183] There is a discussion of this name just below. Cf. also f 15v.

[Editorial Note 184] 38a.

[Editorial Note 185] 37d.

[Editorial Note 186] This seems to be Newton's usual spelling of this name. The more usual modern form is 'Sanchuniathon'.

[Editorial Note 187] 'meteoric stones' according to OLD (Pliny, NH 37.135).

[Editorial Note 188] Damascius, neoplatonic commentator on Plato. One of the seven last scholars of the Platonic Academy, who migrated to the court of the King of Persia when the emperor Justinian closed the Academy in 529.

[Editorial Note 189] Diodorus, Library, 3.57.

[Editorial Note 190] The sun and the moon

[Editorial Note 191] Diodorus, Library, 3. 60.

[Editorial Note 192] Caelus or Caelum = Uranus (Greek Ουρανος).

[Editorial Note 193] Diodorus, Library, 3.61.

[36] b Diodorus, bk. 1.

[Editorial Note 194] Diodorus, 1.25.6.

[37] c Pliny bk. 6, ch. 30

[Editorial Note 195] Herodotus, History, 4.36.

[Editorial Note 196] This does not correspond to Ecclesiastes 1.7 in the King James or the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

[Editorial Note 197] Orphic Hymns, 11, Hymn to Pan, 12-13:

ακαματου ποντου το βαθυρροον υδωρ

Ωκεανος τε περιξ ενι υδασι γαιαν ελισσων

. In this hymn Pan seems to be equated with Zeus as cosmic force. Hence Newton's introductory words: Orpheus on Jupiter and Pan. Newton possessed Orpheus, Argonautica, Hymni, et De lapidibus, ed. A.C. Eschenbach (Utrecht, 1689). Harrison 1214. The poems and hymns are not now attributed to the legendary Orpheus himself.

[Editorial Note 198] 'Pulchrifluus' is a literal translation of Greek καλλιροος, a standard epithet for Ocean, and found in an Orphic fragment quoted in Plato, Cratylus, 402b. Orphica, ed. Abel (1884), which was the edition I had available, prints bathyrroon here, 'deep-flowing', presumably a variant reading.

[Editorial Note 199] Strabo, Geography, 1.1.7.

[Editorial Note 200] Strabo, Geography, 1.4.6.

[Editorial Note 201] 'circle'

[Editorial Note 202] Ogen.

[Editorial Note 203] Ogen, Okeanos

[38] e Hieroglyphica, bk. 1[Editorial Note 204]

[Editorial Note 204] Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, 1.21. Newton gives the title of this work in his n. 43. (See Latin version)

[39] f Hesiod, Theogony

[Editorial Note 205] gaieochos.

[Editorial Note 206] Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 11.33.

[Editorial Note 207] In Lactantius the word is 'ubi' when. Newton (or at least the transcript) prints ibi, which I have translated 'thereupon'.

[40] a s.v. Ἀτλαντικὰ

[Editorial Note 208] 'Suidas', Lexicon, ed. Adler, vol.1, p. 405, no. 4370. This is now called 'the Suda'. The alleged author 'Suidas' is a fiction created from the title. See OCD, p. 1451.

[41] b

[42] c bk. 1, p. 689.

[Editorial Note 209] Much of this occurred earlier at f 15v.

[Editorial Note 210] There are words missing here. I filled them in from the previous occurrence of this passage (Hdt. 1.203). See f 15v.

[Editorial Note 211] Much of this occurred earlier at f 8r (Tr, ch.2, p. 1) and f 15v (Tr., ch. 2, p. 11).

[43] a See Bochart, Geography, bk. 4, ch. 52.

[Editorial Note 212] Phathores.

[Editorial Note 213] Pathoures.

[Editorial Note 214] Oros

[Editorial Note 215] These lines also occur above at the end of the folio immediately preceding f 32r.

[44] ✝ Thooth

[Editorial Note 216] A similar passage occurs at f 75r.

[Editorial Note 217] The Greek spelling is 'Erichthonios'.

[Editorial Note 218] This is 'Xenophon of Grypho, De Aequivocis'. It is included in Antiquitatum Variarum Autores attributed to Joannes Annius (frequently reprinted in the sixteenth century). It includes works purporting to be by Berosus, Manetho, etc., but apparently all but Frontinus, De Aquaeductibus are spurious. This quotation occurs again at f 67r.

[45] a bk. 2

[46] b bk. 1

[47] c On Isis

[48] d Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 21.

[Editorial Note 219] Cf. Plutarch, On Isis, 38, 366c; 44, 368e.

[Editorial Note 220] Here the sentence breaks off.

[49] a.

[Editorial Note 221] 'Latrator Anubis' is a quotation from Virgil, Aeneid, 8.698. Newton is quoting from Servius's Commentary on Virgil.

[Editorial Note 222] Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.11.

[Editorial Note 223] A wand carried by Mercury.

[Editorial Note 224] Nomes were administrative districts of Egypt under the Ptolemies and Romans.

[Editorial Note 225] Strabo, Geography, 17.1.42.

[Editorial Note 226] Hermanoubis. Hermes is the Greek Mercury.

[Editorial Note 227] Or perhaps we could translate 'evasit' as 'turned out to be'.

[Editorial Note 228] Newton's translation garbles Procus's text, though he reports Proclus's exegesis accurately, which reflects the reality of the staff described. That is, a globe is fixed in the centre of the staff which is smaller than the globe at the top; ribbons hang from this smaller globe. The smaller globe, according to Proclus, represents the moon, as Newton reports.

[Editorial Note 229] From Proclus, Chrestomathia in Photius, Bibliotheca, 321b. The ceremony is called the daphnephoria.

[50] a Plutarch, in Isis[Editorial Note 230]

[Editorial Note 230] Plutarch, Isis, 55, 373d-e.

[Editorial Note 231] This garbled repetition is in the text. I've made sense of this with the help of Plutarch, but I can't think of an emendation for dextri or detri.

[51] a Plutarch, in Isis[Editorial Note 230]

[Editorial Note 232] The following section recurs, with some differences, at f 77r.

[Editorial Note 233] Plutarch, Isis, 27, 361E.

[Editorial Note 234] theon kai daimonon

[Editorial Note 235] Plutarch, Isis, 29, 362C.

[Editorial Note 236] Modern editors read emmorphon for eumorphon: 'bodily image' rather than 'beautiful image'.

[Editorial Note 237] Diodorus, Library of History, 1.21.10.

[Editorial Note 238] I haven't been able to find this passage in this chapter. It seems to come from bk. 4, ch. 23, 174c.

[Editorial Note 239] Daimones, which might also be translated 'Inferior Gods', as it usually does in classical Greek. Plutarch gives an explanation of Daimones in Isis, 25, 360D ff.

[Editorial Note 240] Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.20.13. This passage is also quoted at f 77r.

[Editorial Note 241] Plutarch, Isis, 28, 362A.

[Editorial Note 242] Homer, Odyssey 24.11-14. Note the spelling of Ωκεανου. This passage is also quoted at f 78r, where see my note.

[Editorial Note 243] The text as it stands makes no sense. The next few words are added from the reprise of this passage in f 78r: 'Unde etiam Graecorum Achaeron et Charon. Porro tota Osiridis solennitas funebris est, et ad inferos spectat, dum mortuum quotannis lugent', etc.

[Editorial Note 244] The missing words are supplied from f 78r: '... est. Illud vero, inquit Plutarchus ...'

[Editorial Note 245] This is a quotation from Plutarch, Isis, 78, 382E. See the reprise of this passage at f 78r.

[Editorial Note 246] Folio 45 is blank apart from the page numbers '45r' and '45v'.

[Editorial Note 247] And Joshua said to all the people, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors – Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor – lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods.'

[Editorial Note 248] I haven't been able to make anything of these lines.

[52] a bk. 1

[Editorial Note 249] 1.12.6.

[Editorial Note 250] the Sun.

[Editorial Note 251] The following few lines are unintelligible as they stand in the insertion from f 46v, but they are repeated in a slightly shorter form, legibly and intelligibly, in f 46r.

[Editorial Note 252] Words missing.

[Editorial Note 253] Words missing.

[Editorial Note 254] I can't quite get this. The word 'goddess' is not in the Latin.

[53] a In Eusebius, Chronica

[54] b Antiquities, bk. 1, ch. 4.

[Editorial Note 255] I'm not sure why Newton writes 'quique' rather than 'qui'. 'Qui' would represent the Greek better, in the Greek 'those who described the affairs of the Phoenicians' are in fact the three historians named in the text.

[55] c See Works [Editorial Note 256], bk. 1

[Editorial Note 256] Hesiod, Works and Days.

[56] d

[57] e

[Editorial Note 257] Josephus, Against Apion, 1.130.

[58] In Cyril [reading Cyrillum] of Alexandria, Against Julian, bk. 1.[Editorial Note 258]

[Editorial Note 258] Cyril of Alexandria, Against Julian, 1.7. The following excerpt from Abydenus comes from this same passage.

[Editorial Note 259] This name is spelt Xisouthros in Cyril's Greek.

[Editorial Note 260] See n. 81 above.

[Editorial Note 261] De Solertia Animalium, 13.

[Editorial Note 262] 'Elus' seems to be guaranteed by Eusebius's version of the quotation from Sanchoniatho. See Eusebius, Preparation, 1.10, 36a-c and f 36 above.

[Editorial Note 263] This passage also occurred at f 13r and 14v above.

[Editorial Note 264] The full version of the sentence from which this fragment derives comes towards the end of 51r: 'Cunctarum quidem rerum, inquit Josephus, junior apud Graecos est historiae conscribendae diligentia'.

[59] a In Eusebius, Chronica

[Editorial Note 265] This passage occurs also above at 48r, where see my notes.

[60] b Antiquities, bk. 1, ch. 4.

[61] c See Works [Editorial Note 266], bk. 1.

[Editorial Note 266] Hesiod, Works and Days.

[62] d Diodorus, bk. 4

[Editorial Note 267] The full text of this cryptic sentence is given in ch. 1, f 1v.

[63] e Antiquities, bk. 1, ch. 4.

[Editorial Note 268] Eusebius quotes this passage of Josephus at Preparation, 9.11, 414b. It is Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 1,107 ff.

[Editorial Note 269] The text is incoherent here. The passage of Josephus reads: 'Hieronymus of Egypt also mentions this, he who wrote the history of the Phoenicians, and so do Mnaseas and several others.'

[Editorial Note 270] Text restored with the help of Josephus, Antiquities 1.4 and Eusebius, Preparation, 1.9, 414c.

[Editorial Note 271] The text is too corrupt to translate. I have taken this sentence from the parallel passage above on f 48r.

[64] a In Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 9, ch. 12

[Editorial Note 272] This is in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 9.12, 414d ff. The spelling of Sisithrus comes from Gifford's translation of this work.

[Editorial Note 273] Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess, 12.

[Editorial Note 274] Josephus, Against Apion, 1.7-12 (Loeb).

[Editorial Note 275] This is an attempt to turn Josephus' Greek into Latin.

[Editorial Note 276] This emendation is supported by Josephus' Greek – αει.

[Editorial Note 277] I've reconstructed this sentence with heavy reliance on the text of Josephus. I have not been able to get sense solely from the Latin.

[65] a In Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 9, ch. 15.

[Editorial Note 278] Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.89 ff. Loeb translation, adapted.

[Editorial Note 279] Virgil, Georgics, 1.125 ff. Loeb translation, adapted.

[Editorial Note 280] Hesiod, Works and Days, 108-9 and 143-46. Loeb translation, adapted.

[Editorial Note 281] Hyginus, Fables, Fable 274.22.

[Editorial Note 282] Partially quoted above in the 'insertion from f 35r'. Virgil, Georgics, 1.137-39. The quotation is incomplete.

[66] ✝bk. 1.

[66] ✝ bk. 1.

[67] ✝bk. 1.

[67] ✝ bk. 1.

[Editorial Note 283] The sentence breaks off.

[Editorial Note 284] Virgil, Georgics, 1.140-42.

[Editorial Note 285] Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.127 ff.

[68] a Diodorus, bk. 3

[Editorial Note 286] Tibullus, Elegies, 1.10.1-2.

[Editorial Note 287] Much of the material of this paragraph also occurs in f 12r.

[Editorial Note 288] pangenetor.

[Editorial Note 289] γεναρχης genarches. Liddell and Scott give 'ruler of created things' for this word. But my translation 'first begetter' is etymologically possible, and seem to be in line with Newton's point.

[Editorial Note 290] Meter men to theon ede thneton anthropon.

[69] a Sanchoniatho in Eusebius, Gospel, bk.

[70] {illeg} [Editorial Note 291]

[Editorial Note 291] This might be able to be restored by reference to Newton's n. 14 above.

[Editorial Note 292] See my n. 133.

[Editorial Note 293] See my n. 71.

[71] d Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 7

[Editorial Note 294] Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.7.22 (the coin).

[72] e Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 7

[Editorial Note 295] Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.7.21.

[73] e Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 7

[Editorial Note 296] Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.7.21.

[74] l Dionysius of Halicarnassus[Editorial Note 297], bk. 1.

[Editorial Note 297] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities.

[Editorial Note 298] Aristotle, Politics, 7.10, 1329b21-2.

[75] t See

[Editorial Note 299] This repetition is in the transcript.

[76] m Plutarch, Roman Questions[Editorial Note 300]

[Editorial Note 300] Plutarch, Roman Questions, 11 in Moralia, 266e.

[77] m Plutarch, Roman Questions[Editorial Note 300]

[78] g Trogus in Justin, bk. 43[Editorial Note 301]

[Editorial Note 301] Justin, Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus, 43.1.3.

[79] h Diodorus, Library, bk. 5 [Editorial Note 302]; Aurelius Victor [Editorial Note 303].

[Editorial Note 302] Diodorus, Library of History, 5.66.4

[Editorial Note 303] Aurelius Victor, Origo gentis Romanae ['The Origins of the Roman People'], 3.1.

[80] i Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 9 [Editorial Note 304]

[Editorial Note 304] Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.9.2.

[81] k Plutarch, Roman Questions [Editorial Note 305]

[Editorial Note 305] Plutarch, Roman Questions, 19, in Moralia, 268c. Also quoted on f 49v.

[82] i Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 9 [Editorial Note 304]

[Editorial Note 306] Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 9

[Editorial Note 307] Book 2.42. This and some of the other material on this page also occur at f 14r.

[Editorial Note 308] Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris.

[Editorial Note 309] Amoun.

[Editorial Note 310] Author of a Lexicon, probably of the fifth century AD:

[Editorial Note 311] Ammous ho Zeus Aristotelei.

[83] ✝ Chamus

[Editorial Note 312] Plato, Phaedrus, 274d.

[Editorial Note 313] This sentence breaks off here.

[Editorial Note 314] This does not seem to follow from the previous page.

[Editorial Note 315] pangenetor.

[Editorial Note 316] γενάρχης genarches. Liddell and Scott give 'ruler of created things' for this word. But my translation 'first begetter' is etymologically possible, and seems to be more in line with Newton's point.

[Editorial Note 317] Μητηρ μεν τε [N.B.] θεων ηδε θνητων ανθρωπων Meter men to theon ede thneton anthropon.

[Editorial Note 318] The sentence breaks off here.

[Editorial Note 319] Plotinus, Enneads, 5.1.2.

[Editorial Note 320] The emblematic representations of the gods in the following lines seem to derive from Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, 1.12.

[Editorial Note 321] In the normalised transcript 'Iovem' is followed by the words 'quo colitur', which I could make no sense of. In the diplomatic version 'quo colitur' is separated from 'Iovem' by a couple of lines which are crossed through.

[Editorial Note 322] Aristotle, Metaphysics, bk. 8, 1074b1-8.

[Editorial Note 323] For this name, cf. Amonde No and Amon de No on ff 14r and 15r.

[84] a See Bochart, Geography, bk. 1, ch. 1

[85] b Steph.[Editorial Note 324]

[Editorial Note 324] Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica, s.v. Αμμωνια.

[Editorial Note 325] Lucan, Pharsalia, 9.518-19.

[86] f Plutarch, in Osiris[Editorial Note 326]

[Editorial Note 326] I take it this really reads 'Osiris' and not 'Isis'. The full title of Plutarch's work is On Isis and Osiris, but Newton usually refers to it as Isis.

[87] g Psalm 78.51 and 105.23

[Editorial Note 327] This is presumably Athanasius Kircher, but I have not identified the book. Could the title mean Introduction to the Septuagint [reading Sept for Sopt]?

[88] a Pliny, bk. 6, ch. 24

[89] b Herodotus and Pomponius[Editorial Note 328]

[Editorial Note 328] Pomponius Mela, De chorographia.

[90] Herodotus and Diodorus

[91] d Heliodorus[Editorial Note 329], bk. 2

[Editorial Note 329] Aethiopica.

[Editorial Note 330] Could this refer to the story of Antaeus mentioned in 'insertion from f 32v'?

[Editorial Note 331] 'in terra Sennaar Iubi Babel condiderunt' ('they founded Iubi Babel in the land of Sennar') seems to be an interpolation. It refers to the founding of the tower or city of Babel (Genesis 11.2); this was not built by Noah.

[Editorial Note 332] Cf. Strabo, Geography, 17.1.46.

[Editorial Note 333] The text as it stands makes no sense. I have read it as if it were: 'sub cujus imperio vixit filius qui Typhonem ... occidit.'

[Editorial Note 334] Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.121.

[92] b Part of Thebes is in Arabia, and that is where the City was; part too is on the further bank and that is where the Memnonium was. Strabo, bk. 17, p. 816. [Editorial Note 335]

[Editorial Note 335] Strabo, Geography, 17.1.46.

[93] c See

[Editorial Note 336] The repetition is in the transcript.

[Editorial Note 337] Diodorus, Library, 1.17.3.

[Editorial Note 338] This seems to be Strabo, Geography, 17.1.35.

[Editorial Note 339] Incomplete sentence.

[94] a Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, p. 245. [Editorial Note 340]

[Editorial Note 340] Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, 3.16.42.

[95] b Lucian in The Gallic Hercules [Editorial Note 341]

[Editorial Note 341] Usually now known simply as Herakles.

[96] c Diodorus

[Editorial Note 342] The words I have supplied in this sentence are taken from the repetition of this passage in the next paragraph.

[Editorial Note 343] Diodorus, Library, 1.24.5-7.

[Editorial Note 344] Diodorus, Library, 1.24.5-7.

[Editorial Note 345] This is from Hyginus, Fabulae, 274.22. See also above, f 53r.

[Editorial Note 346] 'bellum' 'Belus'.

[Editorial Note 347] This story is also told at f 26r and also at f 32r (or just after).

[Editorial Note 348] I can't make sense of the word 'Typho', which seems to be interpolated here. It does not occur in the parallel passage at f 32r.

[Editorial Note 349] This might also be 'cum socijs' ('with allies'), as in the version at f 32r, or possibly suum filium ('his son'), as in the version at f 32r.

[97] d Homer, Iliad, bk. 5; Apollodorus[Editorial Note 350], bk. 1.

[Editorial Note 350] Apollodorus, Library.

[Editorial Note 351] 'degentes' is meaningless as it stands. It needs to be supplemented by some of the crossed-out words in the diplomatic version, e.g. 'ad suos in Arabica Aegypti parte degentes'. One imagines Newton intended to cross out 'degentes' as well as the other words.

[Editorial Note 352] Antoninus Liberalis, Collection of Metamorphoses, 28, 'Typhon'. A mythographer of the second or third century AD. His short narratives are to be found in Mythographi Graeci, vol. 2, part 1 (1896).

[Editorial Note 353] 'Daimon' is difficult to define: a divine being but, at least in later Greek thought, less than a celestial god.

[Editorial Note 354] I supply the word 'strength' for '{illeg}' from Antoninus Liberalis' Greek: εξαισιος προς ισχυν.

[Editorial Note 355] Pindar, Pythian Odes, 1.12-28.

[Editorial Note 356] The information in brackets, that Typho was the son of Tartarus and Earth, comes from Apollodorus. The rest of the quotation is from Hyginus.

[Editorial Note 357] See R. Pfeiffer, ed., Callimachus (Oxford 1953), vol. 2, pp. 23 and 70.

[Editorial Note 358] I insert the word 'columnas' here.

[98] a Plutarch in Isis

[99] b See also Herodotus, bk. 2 and Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 5.

[100] c Lucian, On Dancing

[Editorial Note 359] Lucian, On Dancing, 42.

[Editorial Note 360] This is also quoted above at f 34r.

[101] ✝ Caesar, Commentaries, 1[Editorial Note 361].

[Editorial Note 361] Julius Caesar, Gallic War, bk. 1.

[Editorial Note 362] This sentence is incomplete.

[Editorial Note 363] Ovid, Metamorphoses, 5.319-31 (Loeb translation adapted). Previously quoted on f. 34r.

[102] a Diodorus, bk. 1

[Editorial Note 364] Lucian, Imagines, 11. Its title in the Loeb Lucian, vol. 4, is 'Essays in Portraiture'. I don't know exactly how to reconstruct the Latin words in the illegible part, though it clearly includes the title of Lucian's work, Imagines.

[Editorial Note 365] There seem to be some words missing here which would translate a further clause in the Greek: 'adorned with gold and with paintings'.

[Editorial Note 366] This may be Strabo, Geography, 16.2.35. Presumably the book number and the rest of the page number are concealed in the illegible part. Newton possessed two copies of Strabo; our reference here would be to the Casaubon 1620 edition, I guess. Harrison, 1572.

[Editorial Note 367] Could this be Albricus philosophus, De imaginibus Deorum, to which Newton refers to in his n. [263]?

[Editorial Note 368] The Salii were archaic and aristocratic ritual associations in towns throughout Italy. The Virgil reference is Aeneid, 8.285 ff.

[Editorial Note 369] A prestigious order of ancient Roman priests.

[Editorial Note 370] Title given in Greek: Αλλος ουτος Ηρακλης. This passage may be found in Varro, Menippea, fragments 19 and 20 (ed. J-P. Cèbe, Rome 1972).

[Editorial Note 371] Aristotle, De Mundo, ch. 2, 392a25.

[Editorial Note 372] Hyginus, De Astronomia, 2.42, line 1328. Ed. G. Viré (Leipzig: Teubner 1992).

[Editorial Note 373] Pliny, Natural History, 2.6.34.

[Editorial Note 374] Apparently Achilles Tatius, 'Isagoga excerpta', no. 17, in Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquiae, ed. E. Maass (Berlin 1958), p. 43.

[Editorial Note 375] Herodotus, History, 2.43.

[Editorial Note 376] See my n. 44.

[Editorial Note 377] Athenagoras, Plea, 21.3. (Traditionally called Legatio, as in the edition by W.R. Schoedel, Oxford 1972).

[Editorial Note 378] Herodotus, History, 2.63.

[Editorial Note 379] I have supplied the words in square brackets to fill the blank space in the text.

[Editorial Note 380] ra-kles, rachles, ares.

[Editorial Note 381] Presumably Athanasius Kircher. 'Prodr Copt' refers presumably to the same work as appeared as 'Prodrom. Sopt.' above (f 58r), and which I thought might be 'Prodrom. Sept.'

[Editorial Note 382] Hyginus, Fables, 2. Hyginus speaks of Melicertes, the son of Ino, not 'Melicartes'.

[Editorial Note 383] It looks as if some phrase like 'by the Phoenicians' is missing, but there is no indication of this in the diplomatic version.

[Editorial Note 384] I've restored 'kalountai Heroes' following Newton's translation. Artaioi kalountai Heroes para Persais. See Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, ed. K. Latte (Hauniae 1953), vol. 1, p. 253.

[Editorial Note 385] Or putting the Latin words in the nominative, 'the Latins seem to have formed Ma-vors or Mars from fortis'. 'Fortis' means brave or strong.

[Editorial Note 386] Μαζευς

[Editorial Note 387] Μαζευ, ο Ζευς παρα Φρυξι.

[103] a Messenia, p. 262 [Editorial Note 388].

[Editorial Note 388] Pausanias, Description of Greece, 4.23.10. This is in the section 'Messenia'.

[Editorial Note 389] 'bellum'.

[Editorial Note 390] Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 9.16, 416d.

[Editorial Note 391] Ζευς Ενυαλιος and Ενυαλιος. Note the spelling.

[Editorial Note 392] Θουρας

[Editorial Note 393] Αρεος Ζευς Spelled Αρειος in Plutarch, as normally.

[Editorial Note 394] Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, 3.42.

[Editorial Note 395] Ιαω

[Editorial Note 396] This passage occurred previously at f 42r.

[Editorial Note 397] This appears to be an incomplete sentence. It does not occur in the previous quotation of this passage.

[104] ✝ apud Euseb. Pr. Evang. l. 9. c. 17.

[Editorial Note 398] Eusebius, Preparation, 9.17, 419c-d.

[Editorial Note 399] Ιαὼ

[Editorial Note 400] The paragraph breaks off with a single 'd'.

[Editorial Note 401] Pomponius Mela.

[Editorial Note 402] What seems to be the equivalent of this name is given as 'Shur' in the King James and Revised New Standard versions of the Bible. The 'Scaenitae' are mentioned in Pliny, Natural History, 6.144.

[Editorial Note 403] I can't quite get the grammar of this, but I wonder if '{illeg}abater' conceals some version of the word 'Nabataei' and if 'Aoarems' conceals some version of the word 'Agrei' – though perhaps not. The Pliny passage seems to be in the area of 6.144 ff.

[Editorial Note 404] I can't make out what 'ad' is doing in the text.

[Editorial Note 405] κιυια

[Editorial Note 406] In Eusebius, Preparation, 1.10, 34c.

[Editorial Note 407] Apollodorus, Library, 1.21.1.

[Editorial Note 408] Cf. 68r and 70r for this difficult and corrupt passage, although this passage has features not found in those passages. Neither the normalised version nor the diplomatic gives us a grammatically feasible text. But I think the gist is as follows: 'Since therefore the Assyrian kings derive their origin from the Arabs, and their father, Chus, derives his origin from Saturn, Jupiter and Hercules, and on that account every Hercules is Arabian; and since, etc.' But I am not at all sure.

[Editorial Note 409] I've translated this phrase as I think Newton understood it. In Justin, however, it means: 'It was the Assyrian king Ninus who first exchanged this ancient and virtually hereditary custom [of peaceful cohabitation between peoples] for an unprecedented lust for dominion.' (Epitome, 1.1.4-5, tr, Yardley, Justin's Epitome of Trogus, 1994. Available online.).

[Editorial Note 410] Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, 2.10.7.

[Editorial Note 411] This is a direct quotation of the first sentence of the 'Chronicus canon' in Eusebius's Chronicon.

[Editorial Note 412] Diodorus, Library, 2.1.4, which is presumably the passage Newton is paraphrasing, does not say 'all things' but 'great deeds', megalas praxeis.

[Editorial Note 413] This assertion about Ninus' father does not seem to be in this passage of Diodorus.

[105] d Dom. Mar. Niger, Geog. Asiae 5 [Editorial Note 414]

[Editorial Note 414] Speculatively, I suggest: Dominicus Marius Niger, Geographiae Commentariorum libri XI? The title as given by Newton may be to a part of this work dealing with Asia, e.g. Geographiae Asiae Commentarius.

[Editorial Note 415] I am translating the passage of Diodorus. The Latin is perhaps impossible to construe as it stands.

[106] Diodorus, bk. 2[Editorial Note 416]

[Editorial Note 416] Diodorus, 2.1.4 ff.

[Editorial Note 417] Αρης

[Editorial Note 418] 'dicitur' supplied from the excised lines in the diplomatic version.

[107] a Strabo, Geography, bk. 15 λέγονται δὲ κίσσιοι ὁι Σούσιοι [Editorial Note 419]

[Editorial Note 419] Strabo, Geography, 15.3.2: 'And the Susians are also called Cissians'.

[108] b.

[109] c Genesis 2.13

[Editorial Note 420] This looks like: Dominicus Marius Niger, Geographiae Commentariorum libri XI?

[Editorial Note 421] There is a dislocation between the pages here.

[Editorial Note 422] Herodotus, History, 3.8 for both gods; cf. 1.131 for Alilat. D. Asheri, et al., Commentary on Herodotus, Books I-IV (Oxford 2007), p. 407 discusses these gods and their Greek equivalents.

[Editorial Note 423] Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, 7.20.1.

[Editorial Note 424] Dislocation in the text because of an insertion. See the diplomatic version.

[Editorial Note 425] Diodorus, Library, 4.2.3.

[Editorial Note 426] Lucian, True History, 1.7.

[Editorial Note 427] Iacchos and huiochous. huiochous is a guess; it might be taken to mean 'son of Chus'

[Editorial Note 428] The sentence tails off.

[Editorial Note 429] Κισσια

[Editorial Note 430] Ἀρταιοι ὁι ἡρωες παρὰ Πέρσαις

[Editorial Note 431] ἀδελφ;ὸς των ἡρώων

[Editorial Note 432] Genesis, 10.9-11.

[Editorial Note 433] The gap in the text here was presumably intended to contain the Genesis reference, probably Genesis 10.8.

[Editorial Note 434] The sentence breaks off here.

[Editorial Note 435] adelphon ton Heroon ἄδελφὸν των Ἡρώων.

[Editorial Note 436] I can't understand 'ipsius'. I wonder if there is something wrong with the text here. The diplomatic version does not seem to help.

[Editorial Note 437] 'Mars of the forests'.

[Editorial Note 438] Filled in from Isaiah, 23.13: 'Behold the land of the Chaldaeans! This people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin.' (King James Version)

[Editorial Note 439] But I don't know why 'vagarentur' is subjunctive. Should it be 'vagabantur', the indicative? There is serious dislocation in the text in this section, which I could not put straight by using the diplomatic version.

[Editorial Note 440] This is a guess.

[Editorial Note 441] The reference seems to be to Bk. 16, ch. 17.

[Editorial Note 442] Velleius Paterculus, 1.6.6;

[Editorial Note 443] Orosius, Histories Against the Pagans, 2.2.4. Proca is a mythical early king of Alba Longa, whose line eventually produced Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.

[Editorial Note 444] This is the second chapter numbered 5.

[Editorial Note 445] This passage occurs also at f 29r.

[110] ✝ As Thebes by Osiris and Bubaste in Lower Egypt by Isis.

[111] a Diodorus, bk. 3

[112] b

[113] ✝ Above

[Editorial Note 446] Herodotus, History, 2.42.

[114] Diodorus, bk. 1

[Editorial Note 447] Diodorus, Library, 1.13.4.

[115] Diodorus, bk. 1

[Editorial Note 448] Diodorus, Library, 1.27.3-5.

[116] Diodorus, bk. 1

[Editorial Note 449] This passage occurs also at f 31r, where see my notes.

[Editorial Note 450] This passage in Gifford's translation of Eusebius' Greek text reads: 'Eisirius, the inventor of the three letters, brother of Chna, the first who had his name changed to Phoenix'. 'Phoenix' also means 'Phoenician'. Newton seems to take 'Isiris', as he spells it, as equivalent to Osiris, to judge by the last sentence of the paragraph.

[Editorial Note 451] 'Paeni' or 'Phaenices'.

[Editorial Note 452] 'Phaenice'.

[Editorial Note 453] 'Phaenice'.

[Editorial Note 454] Stephanus of Byzantium was a sixth century grammarian; his book is now known as Ethnica. See OCD, p. 1442. Χνὰ ὁυτως ἡ Φοινίχη Φοινίχη ἐκαλειτο. τὸ ἐθνικὸν ταὺτης Χνάος

[Editorial Note 455] Eusebius, Preparation, 1.10, 35d-36a. This passage also occurs at f 31r.

[Editorial Note 456] 'Countryside' and 'Farmer'.

[117] l read Thooth

[Editorial Note 457] A similar passage occurs at f 42r.

[118] a

[119] b Plutarch

[120] c

[Editorial Note 458] Same passage occurs at f 42r.

[Editorial Note 459] This seems to be the correct spelling, reflecting the 'Suduc' of Gifford's translation of the Preparation, vol. 1, p. 40.

[Editorial Note 460] Διὸς κουροι].

[121] a

[Editorial Note 461] There is a similar passage at 30r.

[Editorial Note 462] I've put this interpolation in square brackets. The reference is to Clement, Protrepticus, 4.48.6. The usual full title is Protrepticus (or Exhortation) to the Greeks. Are we sure that the word in Newton's text is 'Gentes', not 'Graecos'? Harrison 398 records an edition of the Opera of Clement (1641).

[Editorial Note 463] Something similar to the following section occurs at f 44r.

[122] ✝ Eusebius, Chronica, bk. 1

[Editorial Note 464] Diodorus, Library of History, 1.21.10.

[Editorial Note 465] Isis, 28, 362B.

[Editorial Note 466] Plutarch, Isis, 27, 361E. Perhaps 'Archimachus' should be read as 'Archemachus', the Latinised form of Plutarch's spelling.

[123] ✝ Porphyry in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk.3, ch. 2

[Editorial Note 467] This seems to derive, contrary to Newton's reference, from Eusebius, Preparation, bk. 4, ch. 23, 174c.

[Editorial Note 468] 'Daimones', which might also be translated as 'Inferior Gods', its classical meaning.

[124] Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 20

[Editorial Note 469] Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.20.13. This passage is also quoted at f 46r.

[125] Plutarch, On Isis

[Editorial Note 470] Plutarch, Isis, 28, 362A.

[126] Tertullian, To the Nations, bk. 2, p. 71. [Editorial Note 471]

[Editorial Note 471] Tertullian, Ad Nationes, 2.8.16-17.

[Editorial Note 472] Tertullian has been discussing the story of Joseph from Genesis.

[Editorial Note 473] Usually now spelt Minucius Felix; presumably the work in question is his Octavius, perhaps 21.1.

[127] Minucius Felix, p. 59; Eusebius, Chronica, bk. 1.gr.[Editorial Note 474]

[Editorial Note 474] 'gr.' might stand for 'Greek', i.e., (I think) the Greek version of the Chronica; or perhaps it should be emended to 'pr.', meaning 'proem' or 'preface'.

[Editorial Note 475] Par d'isan Okeanoio roas

[Editorial Note 476] The meaning of this word in Homer's Greek (Λευκαδα) is uncertain.

[Editorial Note 477] Homer, Odyssey 24.11-14. Note the spelling of Ωκεανου. This passage is also used at f 44v.

[128] Plutarch, On Isis [Editorial Note 478]

[Editorial Note 478] Plutarch, Isis, 78, 382E. This passage is also used at f 44v.

[129] c See Marsham, Chronicus Canon, seculum, 1

[Editorial Note 479] Presumably Sextus Julius Africanus, a Christian philosopher of the early third century, who wrote Chronographies (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 10, cols. 63-94).

[Editorial Note 480] George Syncellus, Chronicle (c. 800AD).

[130] f. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 1, p. 32.

[131] r. Syncellus, p. 54 [Editorial Note 481]

[Editorial Note 481] Presumably, George Syncellus, Chronicle.

[132] s. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 3

[133] t Plutarch, in Isis, p. 371.

[134] v Aelian, Varia Historia [Editorial Note 482], bk. 10.

[Editorial Note 482] Sometimes called Miscellany.

[135] g Diodorus, bk. 1 [Editorial Note 483]

[Editorial Note 483] Perhaps Diodorus, Library, 1.43-45.

[Editorial Note 484] Mneuis.

[Editorial Note 485] Menis.

[136] b Diodorus, bk. 1 p.

[Editorial Note 486] Mnenes.

[Editorial Note 487] Mto.

[Editorial Note 488] Minaios.

[137] c Hesiod, Theogony

[138] e Huet. in Oris [Editorial Note 489]

[Editorial Note 489] Perhaps Pierre-Daniel Huet (Huetius), but I do not know which work this is.

[Editorial Note 490] For what it is worth, I don't recognise this word, and I wonder if, etymologically, we don't need a nu instead of a tau. Perhaps it should read menos, the 'spirit' of a man. The Sanskrit is apparently mánas. Mtwes might then be menea, the plural of menos.

[Editorial Note 491] Mtoes.

[Editorial Note 492] Manes. Aeolic is a north-east Greek dialect. I am not at all sure abut this conjecture.

[Editorial Note 493] Manes, the Roman spirits of the dead.

[139] a That Canaan is also Busiris and Canobus and Proteus, And how Cham divided his kingdom between his sons.

[139] a Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 15, Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 2, ch. 1.

[Editorial Note 494] Diodorus, Library, 1.17.3.

[Editorial Note 495] I've supplied this main verb for the sentence.

[140] b So Diodorus and others, although Strabo completely denies that there was ever a king called Busiris

[141] d Plutarch, in Isis

[Editorial Note 496] Plutarch, Isis, 22. 359E.

[Editorial Note 497] Cf. f 13v.

[142] r. s. in the tables of kings in Syncellus [Editorial Note 498].

[Editorial Note 498] Presumably George Syncellus again.

[143] b On Unbelievable Things, Story 29 [Editorial Note 499]. See also Homer, Odyssey, bk. 4. On all these matters consult Natalis Com., bk. 8, ch. 8 [Editorial Note 500]

[Editorial Note 499] Herclitus, De Incredibilibus. Newton gives the name Heraclitus at 'insertion from f 19v'. This work is available in Mythographi Graeci III.2, ed. N. Festa (Leipzig 1902), p. 73 ff. In this edition the story entitled 'Proteus' is numbered '49' not '29', and possibly the transcript should be emended.

[Editorial Note 500] This seems to be Natalis Comes' translation of Athenaeus, Deipnisophistae. Proteus is discussed in Bk. 8, 352e.

[Editorial Note 501] protos., 'the first'.

[Editorial Note 502] protogenes, 'first-born'.

[144] f Diodorus, bk. 1, p. a. [Editorial Note 503]

[Editorial Note 503] Is it possible the 'a.' hides a page number?

[Editorial Note 504] I don't understand what 'ab' is doing in the text. I am not sure of the translation at this point either. I am unable to find this passage in the Corpus Hermeticum, because no suitable edition is available to me at this time.

[145] g Vide locum ab Fr. Patricio in ejus Hernete citatum

[Editorial Note 505] 'Earth'.

[Editorial Note 506] This does not seem to be a complete sentence.

[Editorial Note 507] The transcript sometimes gives 'Attergatis' and sometimes 'Allergatis'. I favour 'Attergatis', since this is the spelling in the English portions of the inserted section; see especially the etymological discussion on f 22r. But I did not think I should change every occurrence of this name in the transcript of the Latin.

[Editorial Note 508] I've put this in square brackets. It looks like an insertion which breaks the flow of the sentence. Cf. a similar passage at the beginning of 21r (English text).

[146] a Antipater of Tarsus in Vossius, On Idolatry, bk. 1, ch. 23

[147] b Diodorus

[148] c Diodorus, ibid. [Editorial Note 509]

[Editorial Note 509] Diodorus, 2.4.4.

[149] d Diodorus, ibid.

[150] e Sanchoniatho in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 1, ch. 10.

[Editorial Note 510] The phrase 'ad Sacerdotum missa' seems to be a garbled repetition of 'a Saturno missa'.

[151] f Diodorus, elsewhere.

[152] h Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess

[Editorial Note 511] I am not clear about the syntax of this sentence.

[Editorial Note 512] This looks like an interjected title.

[153] k Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 16

[154] k Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 16

[155] a Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 93 and 107.

[156] a Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 93 and 107.

[157] a Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 93 and 107.

[158] f Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 101.

[159] a Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 93 and 107.

[160] d ibid, p. 95

[161] d ibid, p. 95

[162] b Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess

[163] Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 92 and the Greek interpreter of Aratus where he discusses the sign of Pisces [Editorial Note 513].

[Editorial Note 513] Presumably this is Aratus, Phenomena, a Hellenistic Greek poem, though I could not find a section on Pisces. It might also refer to a variety of material that was put together, if I understand rightly, in the Middle Ages, under the name of the 'Latin Aratus'.

[164] d Pausanias, 'Attica', p. 12 [Editorial Note 514].

[Editorial Note 514] In Pausanias, Description of Greece, bk. 1.

[165] e Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 107.

[166] f Plutarch in the Dialogue on Love, near the beginning [Editorial Note 515].

[Editorial Note 515] Plutarch, Dialogue on Love, 753D, in vol. 9 of the Loeb edition of the Moralia.

[167] f Plutarch in the Dialogue on Love, near the end.

[Editorial Note 516] Bel-esia

[168] p. Athenagoras, Plea for Christians, towards the end, p. 121.

[169] q. Suidas, s.v. Semiramis.

[170] g Diodorus, bk. 2, pp. 92 and 107

[171] h Lucian in Jupiter Tragedian [Editorial Note 517]

[Editorial Note 517] Translated as Zeus Rants in the Loeb edition of Lucian, vol. 2.

[172] k Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess; Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 107; Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, fable 3.

[173] a sv Aphrodite [Editorial Note 518]

[Editorial Note 518] Suidas, Lexicon, sv Αφροδίτη.

[174] g

[175] k. On the Error of Pagan Religion, ch. 4

[176] n. See Maimonides in Guide for the Perplexed, Part 3, ch. 38.

[177] b On the Syrian Goddess

[178] d In Pliny, Natural History, bk. 7, ch. 56.

[179] s.v. Semiramis

[180] a Natalis comes, bk. 4, ch. 13, p. 386 [Editorial Note 519].

[Editorial Note 519] Presumably the translation of Athenaeus by Natalis Comes, but I have not traced this passage.

[181] b Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 10.

[182] c Julius Firmicus, On the Error of Pagan Religion

[183] Dorion in Natalis Comes, bk. 7, ch. 13 [Editorial Note 520]

[Editorial Note 520] Presumably the translation of Athenaeus by Natalis Comes, but I have not traced this passage. Dorion is an author of a work, On Fish, frequently cited by Athenaeus.

[184] a

[Editorial Note 521] 'star'.

[185] b Bede in his book on times [Editorial Note 522]

[Editorial Note 522] Bede, De temporum ratione, ch. 15, 'De mensibus Anglorum' in Bedae Opera de Temporibus, ed. Charles W. Jones (Cambridge, Mass. 1943), where the goddess is spelled 'Eostre' and the month 'Eosturmonath'.

[186] k. Dorion in Natalis Comes, bk. 7, ch. 13 [Editorial Note 523]; Heraclitus, On Incredible Things, Story 14 [Editorial Note 524].

[Editorial Note 523] Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, bk. 7, 297b-c.

[Editorial Note 524] For this work see my footnote to Newton's note 149.

[187] b Etymologicum Magnum

[Editorial Note 525] As this paragraph stands in the transcript, it is a slightly garbled quotation in Latin translation from a defective passage in Athenagoras, Legation, 30.1. Supplied words in my translation are added from Athenagoras.

[Editorial Note 526] 'they venerate fish' is missing from the text here; it was also almost certainly missing from the text of Athenagoras in Newton's time. See the edition by William R. Schoedel, p. 72-3. Cf. Diodorus, Library, 2.4.2-4 and 2.20.2-3.

[Editorial Note 527] I take this name from the long English passage in the inserted section, on f 22r, though I don't know anything about Archetis. It also occurred to me it might be Attis, the eunuch consort of the goddess Cybele.

[Editorial Note 528] The references in the following paragraph are: Menander of Ephesus from the Archives of Tyre in Josephus, Against Apion, p. 1042[Editorial Note 529] and Jewish Antiquities, bk. 8, ch. 2, p. 67[Editorial Note 530], and in Marsham, p. 408.

[Editorial Note 529] Josephus, Against Apion, 1.116 ff.

[Editorial Note 530] Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 8.144-46.

[Editorial Note 531] 'apud Cytheros' represents Herodotus's το εν Κυθηροις, History, 1.105.

[Editorial Note 532] Herodotus, History, 2.58-59.

[Editorial Note 533] Demeter.

[188] ✝ In Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 9, ch. 27.

[189] a Manetho in Josephus, Against Apion, bk. 1, p. 1040. See Marsham, Chron Can [Editorial Note 534].

[Editorial Note 534] John Marsham, Chronicus canon

[190] a Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 92.

[191] b Diodorus, bk. 2, p. 93

[192] c Plea for Christians, towards the end, p. 121.

[Editorial Note 535] Aster.

[193] b Dorion in Natalis Comes, bk. 7, ch. 13 [Editorial Note 536].

[Editorial Note 536] Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, bk. 7, 297b-c.

[194] a Herodotus, bk. 2

[195] a Herodotus, bk. 2

[196] On the Nature of the Gods, bk. 3

[197] a Herodotus, bk. 2

[198] c Diodorus, p. 22, a.

[199] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, bk. 4; Horace, Carmen Saeculare to Apollo and Diana.

[Editorial Note 537] Eileithuia.

[Editorial Note 538] Venus Genetrix, ancestress of the Romans; genetrix means 'mother'.

[200] b Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, bk. 4; Horace, Carmen Saeculare to Apollo and Diana.

[201] aa in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 1, ch. 10 and in Isis [Editorial Note 539]

[Editorial Note 539] Presumably Plutarch's Isis.

[Editorial Note 540] Perhaps this should be emended to 'Feretrius', an epithet of Jupiter as worshipped on the Capitol at Rome. I don't think 'Aratrius' is an epithet of Jupiter or even a Latin word, though if it were, it would have something to do with ploughing.

[202] a Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, bk. 4 [Editorial Note 541].

[Editorial Note 541] Now, I think, generally known as Adversus Gentes.

[203] b Arnobius, ibid.; Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Pagans, bk. 4.

[Editorial Note 542] Lone word in text.

[Editorial Note 543] See OCD, sv Hecate, p. 671; Danet, Dictionary (1700), sv. Hecate.

[Editorial Note 544] Moon.

[Editorial Note 545] Ειλειθυια, Greek goddess of childbirth.

[Editorial Note 546] The sentence breaks off here.

[Editorial Note 547] The words which I have put in square brackets looks like an intrusive or misplaced heading.

[Editorial Note 548] I supply this name from the 'insertion from f 26r'. It does not seem to make much sense where it is currently placed a couple of lines further down. For the migration of Cham to Thebes, see f 58r, ad fin.

[Editorial Note 549] It looks as if there are several words missing here. The similar passage at f 58r didn't help, or the diplomatic version.

[204] Chamus

[Editorial Note 550] This is a quotation from Plato, Phaedrus, 274D, a sentence immediately following the sentence quoted below, on p. 26v. It is also quoted at f 14r and 15r.

[205] f Plutarch in Osiris [Editorial Note 551]

[Editorial Note 551] Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 33, 364C.

[206] g Psalm 78.51 and 105.23

[Editorial Note 552] Cham.

[Editorial Note 553] Isidore, Etymologiae (Origines), 7.6.17.

[207] p Plutarch

[208] p Plutarch

[208] p Plutarch in Iside.

[209] q Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 18, p. 19

[210] p Plutarch

[210] p Plutarch in Iside.

[211] p Plutarch

[211] p Plutarch in Iside.

[212] q Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 18, p. 19

[213] p Plutarch in Iside.

[214] q Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 18, p. 19

[215] q Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 18, p. 19

[216] Editorial Note: This Note Empty

[217] b Herodotus, bk. 2

[218] a bk. 3

[219] c Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 21, a

[220] p Plutarch in Iside.

[221] q Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 18, p. 19

[Editorial Note 554] This is the spelling of this name at f 32r, where this same story is told in slightly different form. The town is otherwise called Antaeopolis.

[222] p Plutarch in Iside.

[223] q Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 18, p. 19

[224] p Plutarch in Iside.

[225] p Plutarch in Iside.

[226] a

[227] b Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 13 d

[228] c Diodorus, 2.1, p. 18.a

[229] d Socrates in Plato, Phaedrus, p. 124 [Editorial Note 555]

[Editorial Note 555] Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus, 274c, apart from 'observed the order of the stars'

[Editorial Note 556] 'rebus multis nomine... destitutis nomen indidit', here interpolated into the quotation, seems not to be in Plato's text. It means 'gave names to many things that lacked a name'.

[Editorial Note 557] Repetition in text.

[230] f Above

[Editorial Note 558] 'Terra'.

[Editorial Note 559] Sentence incomplete apparently.

[231] g Sanchoniatho in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 1.c

[231] g Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 22 and p. 41

[232] r Lucian, On Sacrifices

[Editorial Note 560] A kind of rattle used in the worship of Isis.

[Editorial Note 561] Mercury's staff or wand.

[Editorial Note 562] The words I have put in square brackets look like an interpolation from elsewhere.

[Editorial Note 563] This seems to be the 'Tabula Bembina' or 'Mensa Iliaca'. Athanasius Kircher had apparently written about it.

[233] k Lucian, On Images

[234] n Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 77.

[Editorial Note 564] Possible a reference to the second book of Herodotus, from which Newton takes this story, as he mentions on the next page.

[235] a Herodotus, bk. 2

[236] b Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Pagans, p. 11. [Editorial Note 565]

[Editorial Note 565] Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, ch. 2 (Loeb edition, tr. Butterworth, p. 35).

[Editorial Note 566] Perhaps Newton intended to add a reference to Plutarch, De Iside.

[237] c Agatharcides in Photius, p. 1334; Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 1; Homer, Iliad, 15 [Editorial Note 567], Palaephatus, On Not Believing Incredible Stories, bk. 1, on Saturn [Editorial Note 568].

[Editorial Note 567] Newton, following the custom of his time, uses Greek letters rather than numbers to designate the books of the Iliad and Odyssey.

[Editorial Note 568] This might be an edition or translation of Palaephatus Peri apiston which was published in 1515 under the title, Palaephati scriptoris Graeci Opusculum De non credendis fabulosis narrationibus. I have not seen this edition. Also, I could not find any section on Saturn, or any reference to Hera's 'anvils' in the text of this short work by Palaephatus which is printed in Mythographi Graeci, III.2, ed. N. Festa (Leipzig 1902), p. 1 ff.

[Editorial Note 569] Homer, Iliad, 15.18 ff.

[238] d Apollodorus [Editorial Note 570], bk.1, ch. 1; Pausanias, 'Laconia', in the middle, p. 86 [Editorial Note 571].

[Editorial Note 570] Library.

[Editorial Note 571] Pausanias, Description of Greece, bk. 3.

[239] e

[240] f Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 22 and bk. 3, p. 190, 191

[241] g

[242] Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 1 [Editorial Note 572]

[Editorial Note 572] Apollodorus, 1.1.

[Editorial Note 573] But the sentence may be incomplete.

[243]

i Suidas on Hephaistos [Editorial Note 574]

i Suidas on Hephaistos [ditto]

[Editorial Note 574] Suidas, Lexicon. There is no article sv Ἥφαιστοσ but there is one entitled Ηφαιστειος δεσμος ('Hephaestian bonds').

[244] f Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 22 and bk. 3, p. 190, 191

[245] f Diodorus, bk. 1, p. 22 and bk. 3, p. 190, 191

[246] p Pausanias 'Attica' [Editorial Note 575]

[Editorial Note 575] Pausanias, Description of Greece, bk. 1 contains the section on Attica.

[247] a in cœlum reducit Pausan. Attic. ante medium

[248] b Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Pagans, p. 11. [Editorial Note 565]

[Editorial Note 576] Cf. Diodorus, Library, 4.3.1 ff.

[249] k Sanchoniatho says this about the Saturn who was [reading erat] the father of Minerva and Pluto, i.e., the Chaldaic Saturn.

[Editorial Note 577] Sentence apparently incomplete.

[250] a Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 1

[251] Albricus, On the Images of the Gods, on Vulcan

[252] p Pausanias 'Attica' [Editorial Note 575]

[Editorial Note 578] 'baetuli','meteoric stones'(?). See above n. 117.

[253] p. bk. 1, ch. 1.

[254] q bk. 3

[Editorial Note 579] I am not sure about this. A sentence in f 38v(?) begins similarly, but continues differently: 'They report of Saturn, brother of Atlas, that his impiety and avarice were outrageous; he took his sister Rhea, into his conjugal bed, and begat Jupiter, who was later given the cognomen of Olympian.' This relies on Diodorus, Library, 3.61.

[Editorial Note 580] Cf. Diodorus, 3.57.2, where it seems that the 'theology' in question is the Atlantian theology. Could this word have dropped from the text?

[255] d Diodorus, bk. 3

[Editorial Note 581] It looks as if we need a superlative adjective here, e.g. 'the most wicked of women', or perhaps 'the first of women'.

[256] a Hesiod, Theogony; Phurnutus, On the Nature of the Gods, on Prometheus [Editorial Note 582]; Pausanias, 'Attica', in the middle, p. 20 [Editorial Note 583].

[Editorial Note 582] Cf. Cornuti sive Phurnuti de natura Deorum gentilium Commentarius, ... (Basel 1543). (from the BL Catalogue). The correct name of the author is L. Annaeus Cornutus, but this had become corrupted to Phurnutus. See OCD, p. 94. There is a Teubner edition of 1881, ed. C. Lang.

[Editorial Note 583] In Pausanias, Description of Greece, bk. 1.

[Editorial Note 584] This detail about Juno, which I have put in square brackets, clearly interrupts the story of Pandora. The story of the anvils on the feet of Juno is at f 27r ad init.

[Editorial Note 585] Cf. Hesiod, Theogony, 513, πλαστην γυναικα, plasten gunaika, 'fabricated woman'.

[Editorial Note 586] 'pixis' or 'pyxis', is a small box for holding medicines, etc., but Hesiod, whom Newton quotes below, speaks of a vase or jar (Theogony, 94).

[257] c Hesiod, Works [Editorial Note 587]

[Editorial Note 587] Hesiod, Works and Days.

[Editorial Note 588] This goes back to Hesiod, Theogony, 90 ff.

[258] g Phurnutus, On the Nature of the Gods, on Mars and Enyo.

[Editorial Note 589] Sentence incomplete.

[259] a Plutarch, Sertorius; Strabo, bk. 17, p. 819

[260] d Homer, Iliad, bk. 2

[Editorial Note 590] εν Αριμοις. Cf. Homer, Iliad, 2.783.

[Editorial Note 591] The text breaks off here.

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