58 



Japhtt, whom the Greeks called Japetos, they knew to be 

 the author of their race, through his son Java7i, or Ion. But 

 as Moses says nothing more of him, than that the dominion 

 of his posterity should be the most extensive of those pos- 

 sessed by his sons, they lost all memory of subsequent 

 transactions ; or at least if they had any memoirs of them, 

 they -were lost in the Ogygian inundation, as I have else- 

 where said. Hence they fell into the grievous mistake of 

 supposing Deucalion and Eolns to be the grandsons of Japhet, 

 though numerous generations must have passed between 

 them. However, they did not proceed to the deification of 

 Japetos until they became acquainted with the Phenician 

 superstition ; then thej' bestowed upon him the august appel- 

 lation of Zen, and confounded him with the Supreme Being, 

 \vhich they anciently adored. But by an inconceivable 

 inconsistency, though they allowed him to be the son of 

 Saturn, and a poor weak infant, difficultly saved from de- 

 struction by the craft of his mother, yet they asserted that 

 he was to become the father of Gods and men, Hesiod, v. 

 457, 468. Cullirnachus justly derides the story that he and 

 his brothers drew lots for the share of dominion each was to 

 have over the universe, and says, that Zen obtained the su- 

 preme rule by force. Te divum regeni nonsors, sed dextra fecit : 

 this was the tradition generally received. They seem to have 

 glanced at the true tradition, that the sons of Noah (Saturn) 



divided 



* Hymn to Jupiter, v. T6. 



I 



