colonization of Greece by Danaus and Cadmus, and then the settlement of the Jews in Canaan ;-adding, "These emigrants were led by Moses; who was superior to all in wisdom and prowess. He gave them laws, and ordained that they should have no images of the gods, because there was only one Deity." Of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have a curious passage from the pen of Tacitus, which witnesses that, in his judgment, the facts of the Mosaic narrative were true. "Not far from the Red Sea lie desert plains, such as they report to have been of old, a fruitful country, full of populous cities, which were consumed by lightnings and thunderbolts." He then adds, "To speak my own sentiments, I must allow that cities, once great and important, were here burnt by fire from heaven, and that the soil is infected by exhalations from the lake." + 53. Let me now add a few words, about the tradition of the Greeks respecting the Deluge; a tradition which, like all others, is primarily local (belonging probably to Thessaly), yet is so mixed up with elements which are peculiar to the Deluge of Noah, that it is impossible not to perceive their original source. I take it from the pen of Lucian, who, as a bitter enemy of the Jews, would not have recorded it out of any conscious desire to bear testimony to their authority. He gives it as a purely Greek tradition. "Concerning the first race of men, they relate that they were very obstinate and did very wicked things, and had no regard to oaths, had no hospitality or charity, upon which account many calamities befell them. For, on a sudden, the earth sent forth abundance of water [Gen. viii. 2], great showers of rain fell [Gen. viii. 2], and the sea overflowed the earth [Gen. vii. 19], so that all was turned into water, and every man perished [Gen. vii. 23]. Deucalion only was saved alive to raise up another generation, because of his prudence and piety [Gen. vi. 9]. He was preserved thus: he, his wife, and children entered into a large vessel which he had prepared [Gen. vii. 7]. After him went in bears, horses, lions, serpents, and all other kinds of living creatures, two and two [Gen. vi. 19; vii. 9]. This is the account the Greeks give of Deucalion." ‡ Plutarch, another Greek writer, speaking of the same tradition, says that Deucalion sent a dove out of the vessel" § (Gen. viii. 8). Now in this particular deluge of Thessaly, it is very improbable that any such precise analogies with those of Noah's Deluge should have occurred. But if the Greeks had received *Diodorus Sic., xl., apud Photian. Lucian, De Ded Syria. + Tacit., Hist., v. c. 7. § Plutarch, De Solertia Animalium. the Hebrew tradition through the dispersion from Babel, nothing would be more natural than that they should have blindly mingled the two stories, just as we had reason to suppose the Chaldeans did in the account they did of Xisithrus, and as the Mexicans did in the account of Coxcox. 54. As another Greek testimony on this point, I may mention that the Apameans living in Armenia possessed coins in honour of the Emperor Septimius Severus, having on the reverse the figure of a chest, with a man and woman standing before it, and two doves above it, one of which is flying with a branch of a tree in its mouth. Which money, though it was coined long after the birth of Christ, yet being the work of a heathen empire, plainly shows that the same tradition as that just narrated was well known and believed. * (3.) Scandinavia and Britain. 55. That the great Keltic and Teutonic races came originally from the East, is a fact so abundantly proved, and now so universally acknowledged, that I need not do more than allude to it. Under such circumstances we may naturally expect to find their mythology and traditional beliefs, though moulded differently in various places, by means of climatic or other influences, to be yet substantially primeval. And so we do. Like the Persian system (of which I have not had time to speak) the Scandinavians believed in the existence both of an evil and a good principle acting in perpetual antagonism. The former, named Loki, is called in the Prose Edda of Iceland, "calumniator of the gods, the grand contriver of deceit and frauds, the reproach of gods and men." One of his children was Midgard, the Serpent, whom the AllFather threw to the bottom of the ocean; and who, having grown to an enormous size, wound himself round the earth,"+ This evil was symbolized by the old dragon or serpent power, which first came from the primitive recollections of paradise. The latter (called Alfadir, "All-Father") is the subject of the following interesting discourse in the first part of the Icelandic Prose Edda : 66 Gangler began-'Who is the first or oldest of the gods?' 'In our language,' replied Har, 'he is called Alfadir; but in the old Asgard he had twelve names.' 'Where is this God?' said Gangler. What is his power, and what hath he done to display his glory?'' He liveth,' replied Har, 'from 6 *See Ray's Physico-theological Discourses, who gives a copy of this interesting coin from Octav. Falcon., De Nummo Apam. Deucal. Diluv. + Maliet's Northern Antiq., c. v. all ages; he governeth all realms, and swayeth all things, great and small.' 'He hath formed,' added Jafnah, 'heaven and earth, and the air, and all things thereunto belonging.' And what is more,' continued Thridi, ‘he hath made man, and given him a soul which shall live and never perish, though the body shall have mouldered away.'" 56. In the same book we find various other confirmations of primitive tradition. There is one (e. g.) which looks exactly like a compendium of the antediluvian history of the Pentateuch, describing a first race of men, and their working in metals, in an age called "The Golden ; "but which was afterwards corrupted by the arrival of women out of Jötunheim (comp. Gen. vi.). Of the creation of the first man and woman, it says, "One day, as the sons of Bör were walking along the sea beach, they found two stems of wood, out of which they shaped a man and woman. From these two descend the whole human race." In another account we get quite as decided, though equally as distorted, a view. The elements, in a chaotic state of gloom and frost, are described as melting into drops under vivifying heat, which gradually assumed a human semblance (comp. Gen. ii. 7), and produced the giant Ymir. Immediately after this was found the cow Audhumla, from whom ran four streams of milk, to feed Ymir (comp. Gen. ii.). As the cow licked the stones round about her, other beings were formed; whence came Bör, Odin, Thor, &c. Connected with the history of the sons of Bör stands the Scandinavian account of the Deluge; for they are said to have slain the giant Ymir, whose blood, pouring forth, drowned the whole world except one, who saved himself with his household. Thor's exploits, too, remind one of the hopedfor Mediator; for he is said to have wrestled with Death (one of Loki's children) and to have fought the Serpent, Midgard, both of whom were the direct impersonations of evil. 57. Of ancient Britain, which will be my last witness, I can only let the Druidical Triads speak, taken from the second volume of the Welsh Archeology, and translated from the oldest Welsh MSS. They are extracted from the book of Caradoc of Nantgarvan, and from the book of Jevan Brechva in 1601. Strange to say, we have the same testimony to an *The Prose Edda, in its present form, dates from the thirteenth century, but embodies the belief of the nation from the Poetic Edda, which is much older; it crystallizes the traditions brought from the East, only thrown into the national forms of Scandinavian thought and feeling. This series bears the following title :-" These are the Triads of the island of Britain, that is to say, Triads of memorial and record, and the information of remarkable men or things, which have been in the island of Britain; and of events which befell the race of Cymry from the age of ages." universal deluge in these Triads; one of which speaks of "the bursting of the lake of waters, and the overwhelming all lands; so that all mankind were drowned, excepting Dwyvan and Dwyvach, who escaped in a naked vessel without sails; and of them the island of Britain was repeopled." In another of these Triads, on the three chief master-works of Britain, we have first on the list, "the ship which carried in it a male and female of all living, when the lake of waters burst forth." 58. Davies, in his Mythology of the British Druids,* gives the whole legend as follows:-"The profligacy of mankind provoked the Great Supreme to send a pestilential wind upon the earth [Gen. vi. 5]. At this time the patriarch, distinguished for his integrity [Gen. vi. 8, 9], was shut up together with his select company in the enclosure with the strong door [Gen. vii. 16]. Here the just ones were safe from injury. Presently a tempest of fire arose. It split the earth asunder to the great deep. The lake Llion burst its bounds [Gen. viii. 2] ; the waves of the sea lifted themselves on high; the rain poured down from heaven and the water covered the whole earth [Gen. viii. 2]. This flood, which swept away from the earth the expiring remains of the patriarch's contemporaries, raised his vessel from the ground, bore it safe on the summit of the waves, and proved to him and his associates as the water of life and renovation." 59. I could, of course, on a theme so vast as this, have easily amplified the treatment of it. I have purposely omitted much such as the existence of analogues to the Hebrew "cities of refuge" (Deut. iv. 41-43) among the Affghans, and some of the North-west American Indians; the very common practice of "circumcision" in different parts of the globe (Gen. xvii. 10); and the custom of "divination by rods" (Exod. vii. 20-22, Numb. xvii. 1-10, &c.), as found in usage by the Greeks and Scandinavians. I should like also to have adduced evidences of a great underlying principle of primitive monotheism which pervades almost every nation, ancient and modern, however sunk in idolatry; but that being too important to be hurried over, I must leave as a totally distinct branch of evidence upon the subject, and take it up, if spared, on some other occasion. 60. For the present I must cease. All these ethnic testimonies, when accumulated, form, in my judgment, a strong and powerful argument. They are like the fossil bones of some old ichthyosaurus, many of which may be broken and * P. 226. disjointed, part being found in one spot and part in another, but which, when compared together and classified, and as far as possible reconstructed, are quite sufficient to convince the skilful paleontologist that they are segments of one great original. In like manner all the traditions, mythologies, writings, inscriptions, paintings, &c., are so many excavated relics of primeval history, which, though often broken up and disfigured, and found among a vast variety of nations, yet when carefully examined and scientifically arranged, become capable of such reconstruction as to satisfy the ethnologist that they are parts of one authentic original. Assuming, then, as I hinted at first, that the Pentateuch is both authentic and genuine, facts which I trust none of you dispute,—we have in this line of argument an ethnic testimony to its accuracy which cannot but confirm and consolidate our faith, and which at a time like the present, when the Pentateuch is assailed both by critical and scientific scepticism, must be very consolatory to timid and doubting hearts. The CHAIRMAN.-Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my duty as Chairman--and I do it from my heart-to move a vote of thanks to Mr. Titcomb for his most excellent lecture. If our cumulative votes could be brought to bear on him as his cumulative evidence has been brought to bear upon the subject before us, I think he would stand very high indeed. (Cheers.) Captain F. PETRIE, Hon. Sec.-Before the discussion commences, I have to state that Mr. Gosse, one of our Vice-Presidents, has sent me a communication with regard to the subject of the paper just read, and, with your permission, I will read it. "I regret that I shall not have the opportunity of hearing this paper read. I hail it with great satisfaction: it is most admirable and most valuable; its only fault is its shortness. But I venture to express an earnest hope that the esteemed author will dig still deeper in this rich mine, and lay before the Victoria Institute more of these treasures of ancient lore, which I believe are almost exhaustless; treasures of historic confirmation of the Word of God, of great value, because of their absolute freedom from all suspicion of collusion with Hebrew authorities. The force of this sort of evidence is cumulalative therefore, the more we can accumulate, the better. I venture to ask a few questions on some points of detail. "In section 4, and passim, the author reckons the Phoenicians in the Semitic family.' But if the Bible is true, the Phoenicians were not descended from Shem, but from Ham; for Sidon was the first-born son of Canaan (Gen. x. 15, 19). Perhaps the affinity of the Phoenician language to the Hebrew is intended; but language is one thing, family another. That language is meant, I gather from sections 28 and 29; where it is stated, as 'a generally conceded truth, that Semitism was a gradual philological develop. ment from the older forms of the Turanian and Hamitic tongues.' It is not the truth of what is the predicate here (the priority of other tongues to the Shemitic) that I am mooting ;-perhaps something might be said on the other |