centaur seems to be fufficiently established. CHAP.` To use the words of an eminent Analyft, IV. "It is faid of the Patriarch, after the de- "luge, that he became 7788, a man "of the earth, or husbandman. This cir"cumstance was religiously recorded in all "the ancient hiftories of Egypt; and it 66 was upon this account, I imagine, that "the ox, fo useful in husbandry, was made "an emblem of the Patriarch. Hence we "find many pieces of ancient sculpture, upon which is to be feen the ox's head, "with the Egyptian modius between his "horns, relative to the circumftances of "this hiftory." The very name of Centaur h is a manifeft allufion to fome perfon, who was skilled in husbandry. Chiron, the primitive centaur, is faid to have been born of a cloud, and to have been intimately connected with the Argonautic voyagers; hav, ing inftructed them in the science of aftronomy, and having contrived a fphere for their use. All these circumftances accord with the hiftory of Noah; and the mytho Bryant's Anal. vol. ii. p. 417. h A goader of oxen. Bryant's Anal. vol. ii. p. 477. N 3 logical I. SECT. logical birth of the centaur forcibly reminds us of the fecond birth of the Patriarch, his descent from the ark, surrounded, as it had been during the prevalence of the deluge, with fogs and clouds. The account, which is given of the ship Argo, will ferve as an additional key to the history delineated upon the fphere. We are informed by Eratofthenes, "that the afterifm of the Argo in "the heavens was there placed by Divine “wisdom; for the Argo was the first ship "that was ever built: it was moreover "built in the most early times, or at the "very beginning; and was an oracular "veffel. It was the firft fhip that ven"tured upon the feas, which before had 66 never been paffed and it was placed in "the heavens as a fign and emblem for "thofe who were to come after." Plutarch is yet more exprefs; express; he afsserts, "that the constellation, which the Greeks "called the Argo, was a representation of "the facred fhip of Ofiris." Hence it appears, that the Argo was in fact the Egyptian Baris, which contained their celebrated * Cited by Bryant, Anal. vol. ii. p. 495. Ibid. Ogdoas, Ogdoas, and which was clearly a repre- CHAP. fentation of the ark of Noah, containing Iv. within it that Ogdoas, from which the whole postdiluvian world was afterwards peopled. That part of the picture, which to a Christian is the most striking, is the afcent of the fmoke from the altar, towards the figure of a triangle; a circumstance, from which one can fcarcely help concluding, that the framers of that sphere had fome obfcure notions of the doctrine of the Trinity but concerning this, let each perfon judge as appears to himfelf most probable. From the evidences, which have been adduced, it is fufficiently clear, that the history of the deluge was by no means unknown to the heathens; but that, for the moft part, their traditions bear a striking resemblance to the Mofaical account of that event. This fubject has been frequently handled before by a variety of authors, fo that it cannot be faid entirely to poffefs the charms of novelty. The defign of the prefent difquifition has been to compress into small compass, and to bring together into one point of view, those va 1 SECT. rious traditions, which are the moft con 1. fonant with the page of Scripture. By the CHAP. V. PAGAN ACCOUNTS OF THE PERIOD AFTER 4. APOLLODORUS. 5. HOMER. 6. HESIOD. counts of after the IN confidering the events which took Pagan ac- |