57 



to the truth, according to which his father peaceably resigned 

 to him the government, Diodor. 230. This tradition is fol- 

 lowed by Lucian,* for he tells us that Satur7i, of his own 

 accord, resigned the government to his son Jupiter, being by 

 age and infirmities incapacitated to undergo its management, 

 and his chains were nothing more than the gout. From the 

 silence of Moses concerning him, during the last 350 years of 

 his life, the fabulists feigned he lay hid in Italy, where they 

 said he made many improvements in agriculture ; hence they 

 called him Satur7ius a Satu. 



The account given us by Moses of the sons of Noah, seems 

 to have influenced the Greek tradition concerning the sons of 

 Saturn. In Genesis the sons of Noah are recorded to have 

 been Sem, Ham or Cham, and Japhet, names as usual cur- 

 tailed from the Greek; Setn from ssf^wt, venerable, as from him 

 the Jews, the peculiar people of God, originated; Ham 

 from a/^apa. canals, in which water is collected,-j' as it was in 

 Egypt, which was a swamp or morass when allotted to Ham; 

 Japhet from ao, Spiro, quasi i«07r«Tif, Spirandi Pater, the father 

 of all that respires,:]: that is, the Father of Life.§ It is 

 somewhat remarkable, that as Japhet is named last, when 

 Noah's sons are enumerated, so the Greeks name Zen (Jupi- 

 ter) last when the sons of Saturn and Rhea are enumerated, 

 Hesiod, v. 456. 



VOL. XI. I Japhet, 



* Saturnalia, p. 610. + Lennep. 124. J Lennep. 181. 



§ The Jod is prefixed, as it is in the wind called Japyx. 



