This inquisition I have been obliged to make concerning some of the principal personages in the annals of Greece. For it is impossible to lay a foundation for a future history unless what is true, and what is false, be previously determined. All those, of whom I have been treating, stand foremost in the lists of antiquity, and have been admitted with too little consideration. Many of the first Fathers in the Christian church, seeing the high pretensions of the Grecians, tried to invalidate their claim, by shewing that all their antient heroes were subsequent to Moses. This was the repeated labour of Clemens of Alexandria, Theophilus, Eusebius, Tatianus, and others. It was a point urged by them continually in their recommendation of the Scriptures, as if priority of time were necessarily a mark of truth. The best chronologers likewise admit these personages in their computations; and great pains have been used to reconcile the contradictions in their histories, and to ascertain the æra when they flourished. These learned men acted upon a very laudable principle, but failed in the very beginning of their process. For, as I have before taken notice, the question should not have been about the time when these persons lived, but whether they ever existed. The fathers proceeded upon very precarious grounds, and brought their evidence to a wrong test. They indeed state things very fairly, and have authorities for all that they advance. But the traditions of the Greeks were not uniform. And if any Gentile writer, instead of carrying the æra of Inachus and Phoroneus, or of Dionusus and Perseus, towards the time of Moses, had extended it to the times of the first kings in Egypt, I do not see what they could have done; for this person, in his turn, could have produced authorities. They might indeed have disputed the point, and have opposed evidence to evidence, but nothing certain could have ensued.
W. Marchant, Printer, 3, Greville-street, Holborn.
[1] In all antient accounts of the Romans the term was expressed Poini, and Poinicus. Poinei stipendia pendunt. Poinei sunt soliti suos sacrificare puellos. Ennius. Annal. vii. Afterwards it was changed to Pœnus, and Punicus.
[2] Simon the Canaanite. Matth. c. 10. v 4. Also the woman of Canaan. Matthew. c. 15. v. 22.