S6 



the Gods naked should be punished ;* an evident allusion to 

 the disrespectful conduct of Ham, Gen. is. 25. 



7thly. During Saturn's reign the golden age is said to 

 have subsisted, and surely we may well presume that after 

 the flood, during Noah's life, and he lived 350 years after it, 

 mankind enjoyed peace and tranquillity ; and after his death, 

 which happened 181 years before the dispersion, we may 

 suppose the silver age existed. Some bickerings, perhaps, 

 there were, but no wars ; for wars would have forced them 

 to separate, which they seem to have been very loath to 

 do. 



These proofs appear to me, as they did to Sir William 

 Jones, to render the identity of Saturn and Noah highly pro- 

 bable.f To these proofs I shall add one more. 



8thly. As the Mosaic tradition takes no farther notice of 

 Noah, after his marked disapprobation of the conduct of his 

 son Ilam, and probably in his old age he left the government 

 of his descendants to his eldest son Japhet, Homer and Hesiod 

 feigned that his eldest son Zen, as the Greeks, or Jupiter, as 

 the Latins call Japhet, dethroned him, and bound him m 

 chains. But this silly opinion was not universally received, 

 even among the Greeks ; for Diodor. Lib. 5. p. 386, relates, 

 that there were two traditions concerning Jupiter, or Zen; 

 one, that he violently ejected his father, and another, that 

 he peaceably succeeded him after his death. Nay, there 

 seems to have been a third, which approached much nearer 



to 



* Callim. in hjmnis. 



t 1 Asiatic Researches, 229. 



