gar, and whatever their ancient Learning was, it was either destroyed by their Emperor Zio, who, they fay, burnt all their ancient Books, or by fome other Accident it is loft.

The Works of the most ancient Phanician, Egyptian, and of many of the Greek Writers, are alfo perished, but fucceeding Generations have accidentally preferved many of their Notions, and we have confiderable Fragments of their Writings tranfmitted to us. The Egyptians, as Diodorus Siculus (a) informs us, affirmed that In the Beginning the Heavens and the Earth were in one Lump, mixed and blended together in the fame Mafs. This Pofition may at first Sight feem to differ from Mofes, who makes the Heavens and the Earth diftinct at their firft Creation; but it is obvious to obferve, that the Egyptians did hot take the Word Heaven in the large and extended Senfe, but only fignified by it the Air and Planetary Regions belonging to our World; for the first Greeks, who had their Learning from Egypt, agree very fully with Mofes in this Point.

(a) Diodor. Sic. 1. 1.

In the Be

ginning,

ginning, fays Orpheus (a), the Heavens were made by God, and in the Heavens there was a Chaos, and a terrible Darkness was on all the Parts of this Chaos, and covered all Things under the Heaven. This Pofition is very agreeable to that of Mofes: In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, and the Earth was without Form, and void, i. e. was a Chaos, and Darkness was upon the Face of the Deep. Orpheus did not conceive the Heavens and the Earth to have ever been in one Mafs, for as Syrian (b) obferves, the Heavens and the Chaos were, according to Orpheus, the Principia out of which the rest were produced.

The ancient Heathen Writers do not generally begin their Accounts fo high as the Creation of the Heavens and the Chaos, they commonly go no further backward than to the Formation of the Chaos, into a World. Mofes describes this in the following manner: The Earth was without Form, and void, and Darkness was upon the Face of the Deep, and the Spirit of God moved

4

(a) Suid. voc. 'Opo: Cedren. ex Timol. p. 57. Procl, in Tim. B16. C. p. 117.. (b) Ariftot. Metaph. p. 2.

upon the Face of the Waters. Anaxagoras, as Laertius informs us, began his Book (a), All Things were at first in one Mass, but an intelligent Agent came and put them in order; or, as Ariftotle (b) gives us his Opinion, All things, fays he, lay in one Mafs, for a vaft Space of Time, but an intelligent Agent came and put them in Motion, and fo Separated them from one another. We have Sanchoniathon's Account of Things in Eufebius, and if we throw afide the Mythology and falfe Philosophy which those that lived after him added to his Writings, we may pick up a few very ancient and remarkable Truths, namely, that there was a dark and confufed Chaos, and a Blast of Wind or Air, to put it in a Ferment or Agitation; this Wind he calls are Konπia, not the Wind Colpia, as Eufebius feems to take it, but veμ Col-Pi-Jah, i. e. (c) the Wind or Breath of the Voice of the Mouth of the Lord; and if this was his Meaning, he very emphatically expresses God's making all things with a Word, and

Κολπία,

Τα Πάντα χρήματα ἦν ὁμῖ· ἔτα Νᾶς ἐλθὼν αὐτὰ διεκόσμησε. (6) Φησί γὰρ Αναξαγόρας, ἐμὲ πάντων όπλων και ἠρεμένων τ' άπειρον χρόνον, κίνησιν ἐμποιῆσαι ἢ τῶν καὶ δια nevar. Arift. Phyf. Aufc. 1. 8. c. I.

קול-פרייה (6)

intimates

intimates alfo what the Chaldee Paraphraft infinuates from the Words of Mofes, that the Chaos was put into its firft Agitation by a mighty and strong Wind.

Some general Hints of these things are to be found in many of the Remains of the ancient Greek Writers. Thales's Opinion was, that the first Principle of all Things was dog, or Water (a). And this Tully affirms to (b) have been his Opinion; but it should be remarked from Plutarch's Obfervation, that Thales's us we was not pure Elementary Water. The Succeffors of Thales came by degrees to imagine, that Water, by being condenfed, might be made Earth, and by being rarified would evaporate into Air; and fome Writers have hence imagined, that Thales thought Water to be the Initium Rerum, i. e. the firft Principle out of which all other Things were made: But this was not Thales's Doctrine. The ancient Philofophers are faid to have called Water, Chaos, from xew the Greek Word,

(α) Αρχων τῶν πάντων ὕδωρ ὑπεςήσατο, Laert. (b) Lib de Natura Deorum 1. §. 10. Thales Milefius Aquam dixit effe Initium Rerum,

which

which fignifies Diffufion, fo that the Word Chaos was ufed ambiguously, fometimes as a proper Name, and fometimes for Water; and 'tis conceived, that this might occafion Thales's Opinion to be mistaken, and himself to be reprefented as afferting the Beginning of things to be from Chaos, Water, when he meant from a Chaos. But take him in the other Senfe, afferting Things to have arifen from Water, 'tis eafy to fuppofe him to mean, by Water, a fluid Subftance, for this was the ancient Doctrine; and thus Sanchoniathon argues, from the Chaos he supposes 10 or Muddy Matter to arife; and thus Orpheus (a), out of the fluid Chaos, arose a muddy Substance; and Apollonius (b), Out of the muddy Substance the Earth was formed, i. e. fays the Scholiaft, the Chaos of which all things were made, was a fluid Substance; this, by fettling, became Mud, and that in time dried and condensed into folid Earth. It is remarkable that Mofes calls the Chaos,

Ἐκ

(α) Εκ τε ύδατΘ ἱλὺς κατέση. (b) Ἐξ ἀλῶ ἐβλάςησε χθων αυτή.

Water,