C 9 i Babylon, and that from thence he went among the Per- fans and taught them to worfhip the Fire. Probably he fubtilized upon the Matter, and inculcated, not the Adoration of the Element itfelf, but of the Deity, which they, and after them the Syrians and Phanicians, believed to refide in it. The Babylonians, Aflyrians, and fome other Orientals, are Rated to have received their erroneous Principles from him; as the Egyptians, /Ira- bians, Lybians, &c. are concluded to have derived their Corruptions from the Sons of Chus or Mifraim. And we are told, that, in the Time of Seruch or Serug (who was born 163, and died 393 Years after the Deluge *), the Minds of Men were become fo infatuated by Super- ftition and Idolatry, that, even in that early Age, they began to offer their Sons and their Daughters to Devils.t THE People of ChalLea, who, according to jambli- chus, $ were earlier in the Profeffion of their Religion, as well as in the Arrangements of civil Polity, II than the Egyptians, and probably were their Præceptors in whatever the latter retained of the Zabaiftical Superfti- tions; appear to have derived their Notions of the Tri- nity from their Zoroaßer, whoever that Perfonage was, . or how early foever he lived. Even the Egyptians them- felves feem' to acknowledge it in Ifaiah xix. Ir. where Pharoah is prompted by his wife Counfellors to de- clare, I am the Son of the Wife ; the Son of the Kings of the Kilt; founding the Claim to Knowledge on his Eafiern Defcent. § From the Teftimony of Numeni- USHER'S Annals; who follows Confiantine Manais in comput- ing the early Ages, as Dr. Blair does both in his chronological Tables. 1' SAID ABNBATRICH aped Sito. Prol. de cult. extran. primord. C. 3. PHILO JUD,ÆUS apud SUID. in A6faalm. SPANH. Hill Eccles. V. T. p. z9t. CEUREN. Syn. Hifi. p. 37. I De myll. §. i. c, i. STILLINCFL, Orig. Sarr. 1. s. c. 3. ¡a. Our Tranflation has it, San of antient Kines, which certainly could not be a Plea for Wifdom; but to boaft his Pedigree from the Wife and Learned Kings of the Eaß, was to boaft of the higheft Advantages of acquiring Knowledge. Ss
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