PART III.

LECTURE V.

SECT. II.

Philosophy not introduced into Europe until near the period of the Babylonish Captivity-Thales-Anaximander-Anaxagoras-Probability that some of their opinions were ultimately derived from the Jews-General circumstances in the history of Grecian philosophy and religion, render the same thing probable of them-Their sages travelling for learning into Egypt and the East-Connection of the Jews with Egypt at this period-Early philosophers of Greece delivered their tenets dogmatically-Inference from thence-The higher we trace the philosophy and religion of Greece, the purer it is found-Inference-Providence gradually prepared the world for the Gospel-Grecian language and literature-Connection of Greece with Asia increased-Conquests of Alexander -Singular distribution of the Jews at this period-Jews in Egypt use the Greek tongue-Septuagint translation, its importance-The formation of the Alexandrian library— Sects of Grecian philosophy-Their effect-Extension of the Roman empire--- Facilitated the spread of Christianity.

PART III.

LECT. V.

SECT. II.

HITHERTO we have traced the effects of the Jewish dispensation, chiefly in enlightening the oriental nations; but let it be remembered, that previously to the Babylonish captivity, the greatest part of Europe had been sunk in barbarism, and Greece itself began to emerge from the depths of ignorance only at that period. It was not until after the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, that Thales travelled into Egypt, and from thence introduced into his native land, geometry, astronomy and philosophy: he appears to have been amongst the first, who gave his countrymen any rational idea of the origin of the world, and

* Vide Chronological Tables of Marshal and the Universal History, also Brucker's Historia Philosophia, Lib. II. cap. i.

his opinion that water was the first principle of things, and that God was that spirit who formed all things out of water, seems evidently borrowed † from the Mosaic account indistinctly understood; *" that in the be

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ginning the earth was without form and

void, and darkness was upon the face of "the deep, and the spirit of God moved the face of the waters."

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Anaximander,

the friend and disciple of Thales, seems to have expressed his opinion though in different terms, yet such as indicate that it also sprang from the same source. He taught that infinity was the first principle of all things, from which they are produced, and in which they terminate. The most rational explanation of this idea seems to be, that it means that indefinite chaos combined with that infinite mind, from which all things proceeded.

* Genesis, i. 1.

The

Thales enim Milesius qui primo de talibus rebus quæsivit, aquam dixit esse initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem quæ ex aqua cuncta fingeret. Cicero de Natura Deorum, Lib. I. cap. x.; and Bruckeri Historia Philosophiæ, Lib. II. cap. i. Vol. I. p. 465.

Bruckeri Historia, Lib. II. cap. i. sect. x. p. 483, whe explains the opinion of Anaximander as I have done.

The great Anaxagoras * also, who first distinctly taught the separate existence of a supreme all-directing Mind, spoke of the material world as originating from a confused mass, consisting of different kinds of particles, each of which afterwards combined. in homogeneous masses; an opinion so similar to that of the Mosaic records, that we can scarcely doubt but that it was from them derived.

But not to enter into a disquisition unnecessary to the object of this work, and in which certainty is scarcely attainable, it may be sufficient to remark some general circumstances in the history of the Grecian philosophy and religion, which appear to confirm the opinion of their having been derived ultimately from the source of the Jewish revelations; though corrupted and debased. with the impure mixtures of Egyptian mystery and superstition, and rendered still more extravagant and incoherent, by that poetic imagery which the vivid imagination of the Greeks so promptly invented, and so fondly retained.

One of these circumstances is, that Egypt ↑

was

* Bruckeri Historia, Lib. II. cap. i. sect. xx. Vol. I.

P. 503.

† Brucker affirms this of Thales, from whom the Ionic