3. Madai was the father of the Medes: for, whenever the sacred writers CHAP. III. have occasion to speak of this people, they designate them by the very same appellation that Moses bestows upon the son of Japhet'. 4. From Javan were descended the aboriginal Javanites or Iaones or Yavanas; by which names the inhabitants of Greece have invariably been But called by the oriental nations, and sometimes even by themselves". here we must attend to a very curious distinction, founded upon an historical fact and accurately noticed in the Hellenic records. The Greeks so famous in history were a compound of Scuthic Pelasgi from the north and of Phenician and Egyptian emigrants from the south; who, at an early period, invaded and subjugated the territories of Javan, and in process of time became completely mingled with his descendants. Hence we are continually told, that Hellas was at first inhabited by barbarians3: and these barbarians were doubtless the old Iaones or Iannes or Javanites. But the invaders were of a totally different family; and, as we shall hereafter see, whether they came from the north or the south, they were still alike of the same race with each other. Yet they bore a title so nearly resembling that of the aborigines, that the two have been perpetually confounded together, though the Greek writers themselves distinguish them with the greatest accuracy. The invaders called themselves Iones or Ionim, while the aborigines were denominated Taones or Javanim: and, from this mere similarity of sound, the Ionic tribes, in palpable contradiction to all history, have been frequently adduced as bearing the name of Javan their supposed ancestor, when all the while they were foreigners who had attacked the children of that patriarch. But the Greek historians fell into no such mistakes. Conscious that the laones, whom they styled barbarians, had been invaded by their own ancestors the Iones, who were of a different stock; they carefully distinguish between the two: and, although Comp. Gen. x. 2. with 2 Kings xvii. 6. Ezr. vi. 2. Esth. i. 19. Isaiah xiii. 17. Jerem. li. 11. Dan. v. 28. viii. 20. ix. 1. xi. 1. Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 125. Schol. in Aristoph. Acharn. ver. 106. Hesych. Lex. 3 Strab. Geog. lib. vii. p. 321. Plat. Cratyl. vol. i. p. 425. Schol. in Apoll. Argon. lib. iii. ver. 461. Paus. Attic. p. 77. Pag. Idol. VOL. III. 3 L BOOK VI. the names might from their similarity have been sometimes confounded, the most accurate of their writers speak of them as separate appellations, and represent the introduction of the one as being posterior to that of the other. Thus Strabo tells us, that Attica was formerly called both Ionia and Ias or Ian: and thus Pausanias mentions, that the name of Iones was a comparatively modern addition or assumption: while that of Tuones is acknowledged to have been the primitive title of the barbarians, who were subjugated by the Iones'. If we inquire whence these invaders got the name of Jones, we have a perfectly clear account of the whole matter: they were so called from their ancestor Ion or Ionan, the son of Xuth, the son of Hellen, the son of Deucalion. Now Deucalion, who was preserved in an ark, was certainly Noah: hence, if the Ionic Greeks be accurate, their ancestor was a great grandson of that patriarch. Nor will it be very difficult to learn, what great-grandson he was. The Iones, we are told, received their name from Ionan or Ioanes, a man of gigantic stature, who was the ringleader in the building of the tower, when the languages of all mankind were confounded: and they were the first, who introduced the worship of idols and who deified the Sun and the Moon and the Host of Heaven 3. Ion then was evidently Nimrod; who stands in the very same degree of relationship to Noah, that Ion does to Deucalion: and, accordingly, as Nimrod is said to have been the son of Cuth; so Ion, with a very slight variation, is similarly said to be the son of Xuth. Whether the Iones were literally descended from Nimrod, may perhaps be doubtful; but they certainly were of the line of Cush and of the family of the Shepherd-kings of Egypt. Nimrod seems to have taken the name of Ion from the worship of the Ionah or Yoni; and, as he doubtless was initiated into his own Mysteries, the Greeks had a tradition, that Ion was exposed during his infancy in an ark decorated with olive. From this superstition was derived what Epiphanius calls the heresy of Ionism or Hellenism: and we Strab. Geog. lib. ix. p. 392. Paus. Achaic. p. 396, 397. * Paus. Achaic. p. 396. 3 Chron. Pasch. p. 49. Hist. Comp. p. 46. Euripid. Ion. ver. 1434. Strab. Geog. lib. viii. p. 383. Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 7. § 2. have already seen, that he describes it, as succeeding the more simple apos- CHAP. III. tasy of Scuthism and as commencing with the Babylonic tower. The Greek Iones then really had their name from the Ionic idolatry: and the close resemblance of this religious title to the gentile appellation of Iaones has caused them to be often confounded together, and has led many authors erroneously to deduce them alike from Javan. They are however two different names, borne by two different families for two dif ferent reasons: and, slight as the distinction is between them in Hebrew or Chaldee, we still find, that, as the Greeks speak of Iaones and Iones and of Ionia and Ian; so the Hindoos, with equal accuracy, mention both the Yavanas and the Yonijas". With respect to the sons of Javan, we seem to recognize Elishah in Elis, Tarshish in Tartessus or Tarsus, Kittim in the Macedonian Cittium, and Dodanim in Dodona. 5. It is not improbable, that Tiras might have been the father of the aboriginal Thracians, whose kings not unfrequently bore the name of Tereus: but, however this may be, the later Thracians were so largely mixed with Scuths, that they may almost be deemed an entire Gothic nation. II. The posterity of Shem were confined entirely to southern Asia: and, much as they were brought under the dominion of Cush, whose children were almost invariably intermingled with them; they may yet for the most part be easily discovered in their separate settlements, where they fixed themselves, as we learn from Moses, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. Both they, and the more eminent of the descendants of Ham, are perpetually mentioned in Holy Scripture and this circumstance renders the investigation of their colonies far more easy than that of the colonies of Japhet. 1. Elam appears to have been established in southern Persia, contiguous to the maritime tract which eminently bore the name of Chusistan or the land of Cush. Here, from first to last, he was subject to the Cuths; whether known as Scuths, or as Gothic Persians, or as Sacas, or as (by a 'Javan and Iona differ only in a single letter, and ♬♪; nor can Ion or Ionan, as a masculine name, be distinguished in Hebrew characters from Javan except by the points. BOOK VI. general appellation) Iranians. The locality of Elam is determined by Da niel; for he mentions, that Shushan or the chief city of Susiana was situated within that province'. Elam is the Elymaïs of pagan writers: and the Elamites are those Elymèi, whom Pliny and Ptolemy notice as inhabiting the shores of the Persian gulph. 2. Ashur planted the land, which in Scripture is invariably distinguished by his name, and which by the Greeks was thence rightly denominated Assyria. This was also a province of the Cuthic or Iranian empire; and, as such, with Elam and Aram and perhaps the greater part of Arphaxad, was included within the ample limits of Iran or Cusha-dwip within or the Asiatic Ethiopia. 3. Arphaxad, through his grandson Eber, branched out into the two houses of Peleg and Joktan; the former of whom was the ancestor of the Israelites and other kindred nations in the west of Asia. (1.) As for Peleg, he must have remained in Chaldèa or southern Babylonia at the time of the dispersion: for there we find the family of Abraham settled, previous to the emigration of his father Terah from Ur of the Chusdim. (2.) Of the numerous children of Joktan it is said by Moses, that their dwelling was from Mesha as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east: hence, whatever be the precise situation of mount Sephar, they evidently spread themselves in an oriental direction. I am inclined to believe, that they were the ancestors of the great body of the Hindoos; and consequently that Josephus was not far mistaken in placing them on the banks of an Indian river, which he names Cophenè3. To this opinion I am the more inclined from finding among the Hindoos very vivid traditions, even by name, of the patriarch Shem or Sama or Sharma. They describe him, as being of a most benevolent disposition, but of a weak constitution: they speak of him, as travelling (that is to say, in the persons of his descendants) into their country: and they represent him, as instructing all the four principal castes in their religious duties. He is likewise supposed to have been one of the many incarnations of Buddha: and this, I think, will account 3 Ant. Jud. lib. i. c. 6. § 4. ' Dan. viii. 2 * Gen. xi. 31. for the mild and philosophical character with which that god is invested by CHAP. III, the Hindoos; while the more warlike Goths exhibit him, as the ferocious, though literary, deity of war. Ophir, one of the sons of Joktan, is often mentioned in Scripture as inhabiting a land abounding in gold, to which voyages were made by ships that sailed from the ports of the Red sea. Now Moses tells us, that Ophir, in common with the other sons of Joktan, settled far to the east. The voyages therefore from the Red sea to the land of Ophir must have been made in an eastern direction. But the whole sea-coast of Persia as far as the Indus was inhabited by Cush mingled with Elam. Hence it will necessarily follow, that the land of Ophir must have been beyond the Indus. And this will bring us to the great peninsula of Hindostan, for the seat of Ophir and his brethren: to which, accordingly we find, that regular voyages have in the earliest times been made from the mouth of the Red sea across the Indian ocean 3. 4. Of Lud scarce any mention is made by the inspired historians, so that we are greatly in the dark respecting the land which he colonized. If we may argue from similarity of names, it is not improbable, that he may have been, as Bochart supposes, the father of the Lydians or Ludians: for this people had a tradition, that they were descended from Lydus or Lud*. Josephus coincides in opinion with Bochart". 5. The children of Aram planted the fertile country north of Babylonia, that lies between the Euphrates and the Tigris: whence by the Greeks it was called Mesopotamia; and, by the sacred writers, Aram of the rivers. Afterwards, though largely mingled with other adventurers of the great Iranian empire, they spread themselves over the whole of Syria beyond Damascus. The inhabitants of this second Aram are acknowledged by the Greeks to have always styled themselves, as they were always styled by their Asiatic neighbours, Arimi or Aramèans®. 2 III. At the first division of the earth, Ham was mixed with Shem Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 525-530. 1 Kings ix. 26-28. x. 11. xxii. 48. 2 Chron. viii. 17, 18. ix. 10. 'See Robertson's Disq. on Ind. sect. i. Ant. Jud. lib. i. c. 6. § 4. Boch. Phaleg. lib. ii. c. 12 • Strab. Geog. lib. i. p. 42. lib. xiii. p. 627. lib. xvi. p. 784, 785. |