124 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



we give any faith at all to the Hiftory of Mofes. But, beiides, who 

 can believe that Mofes, ivho 'was learned in all the learninr of the 

 Egyptians, did not learn there to meafure time by the courfe of the 

 Sun, as well as by that of the Moon ; or, if we could doubt of that, 

 is it not evident, from the account which Mofes gives of the Flood, 

 that he had learned, at leaft, to diftinguifh between months and 

 years ? In the latter part of his narrative, when he comes down 

 to Abraham and his family, nobody fuppofes that his years are 

 months. Now, who can believe that, in one part of his hiftory, he 

 computes by one year, and in another by a different year : Befides, 

 fuch a fuppofition would overturn our whole fyftem of chronology, 

 which is founded upon a computation by thefe long lives and ge- 

 nerations, fuppofing the years to be folar years. 



But thefe gentlemen fhould know that the long life of men in an- 

 tient times does not reft folely upon the authority of Mofes; for Jo- 

 fephus names feveral authors, both Greek and Barbarian, who fpeak 

 of Men living a thoufand years * ; which authors are now loft. 

 But there is one ftill extant, of great antiquity, I mean Hefiod, who 

 tells us, that, even in his Second Age, or Silver Age, as he calls 

 it t> Men were a hundred years in the nurfery ; which agrees 

 perfectly with what Mofes fays, of their beginning to propa- 

 gate at that age : And there is an antient Greek hiftorian, Ephorus, 

 who was a very diligent inquirer into antient times, and who relates, 

 that the Arcadians, a moft antient people of Greece, had preferved 

 amon^ them the memory, that fome of their antient kings had lived 

 300 years %. 



But, fuppofe we fhould rejed the authority of Mofes, with re- 

 fpedt to the antedeluvian Patriarchs, what fhall we fay of thofe that 



lived 



• Jofepli. Hi ft. Lib. i. c?p. 3. injine. 

 f Operae et Dies, Verf. 130 

 PJiny, Lib. vii. cap. 48, 



