142 THEORY OF THF. EARTH. 



contrary, they have a wonderful agreement with 

 them, by the epoch which they assign to the 

 Egyptian and Phenician colonies, by which the 

 first germs of civilization were carried into Greece. 

 We find that, about the same period when the 

 Israelites took their departure from Egypt, to 

 carry into Palestine the sublime doctrine of the 

 unity of God, other colonies issued from the same 

 country, to carry into Greece a religion less pure, 

 at least in its external character, whatever might 

 have been the secret doctrines which it reserved 

 for the initiated ; while others, again, came from 

 Phenicia, and imparted to the Greeks the art of 

 writing, and whatever was connected with navi- 

 gation and commerce *. 



* There is a difference of several years among chronolo- 

 gists with respect to each of these events ; but these migra- 

 tions form, notwithstanding, the peculiar and very remark- 

 able feature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries before 

 the Christian era. Thus, according to the calculations of 

 Usserius, Cecrops came from Egypt to Athens about 1556 

 years before Christ ; Deucalion settled on Parnassus about 

 1548; Cadmus arrived from Phenicia at Thebes about 

 14p3 ; Danaus came to Argos about 1485 ; and Dardanus 

 established himself on the Hellespont about 1449* All 

 these founders of nations must therefore have been nearly 

 contemporary with Moses, whose migration took place 

 in 1491. Consult further, regarding the synchronism of 

 Moses, Danaus and Cadmus, Diodorus, lib. xi; in Photius, 

 p. 1152. 



