shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before A.C. 570. the king.

authority to induce us to believe that this philosopher conversed likewise with the Jews of the dispersion at Tyre in Phoenicia; and probably at Mount Carmel; where it is said, his walk was long shewn. It is certain that he was in Egypt, and many suppose that he was taken prisoner into that country, either by Nebuchadnezzar, or by Cambyses. From Egypt he either went or was taken to Babylon, where again he must have acquired an intimate knowledge of the Jews; and in this latter place he is said to have had for an instructor Zabratas, or Nazaratus; whom the learned Selden supposes to have been Ezekiel; and Prideaux, Zoroaster. The exact period of the birth of Pythagoras is not certainly known. The accounts of his life, now extant, are uncertain and contradictory that which appears most probable and satisfactory, informs us, that at the age of eighteen he consulted Thales at Miletus, who recommended him to visit Egypt.

From Miletus he proceeded to Tyre (the place of his nativity, though educated at Samos); from thence he travelled to Egypt, with letters to Amasis from Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. He quitted Egypt for Babylon, where he continued twelve years, and conversed with Zabratus or Nazaratus: he is then supposed to have returned to his own country, and to have been at that time about fifty-six years of age.

The birth of Pythagoras is referred by the learned Dr. Bentley to the year B.C. 605; by Bishop Lloyd to B.C. 583; by Dodwell to B.C. 569; by Le Clerc to a period not earlier than the first, nor later than the last of these. If then we take the medium date which would be 587, or that of Bishop Lloyd's at 583; it will assist us to account in a great degree for those changes of Pythagoras from one country to another.

If he was born in 583, and returned home in the fifty-sixth year of his age, after remaining twelve years at Babylon, twenty-two in Egypt, and consulting Thales at Miletus in the eighteenth year of his age, the several dates of these events may be thus arranged:

On comparing the above dates with the various events recorded in the history of the times, we shall find that Thales, in the year 565, was in all probability at Miletus. He was then seventy-five years old: an age when travelling could have been no longer desirable; and before Croesus, king of Lydia, had engaged him in his service. He died, aged more than ninety-six years, in the court of that monarch.

In B. C. 563, the whole country of Judea was still desolate; not having recovered from its last ravage by Nebuzaradan. In this year Nebuchadnezzar was restored from his lycanthropy, and the Jews were rising into distinction in the Persian empire. Leaving Judea and its refugees, whom he might have

A.C. 570.

3 And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.

found both at Tyre and Carmel, Pythagoras proceeded to Egypt. He would there meet with many of the Jews who had fled with Jeremiah from Judea nineteen years preceding. From them, as well as from the natives, he would learn the fulfilment of that prophet's predictions respecting Apries. This and other circumstances exciting his curiosity; he at last visited Babylon; where he is supposed to have arrived in the year 541, and two years before the death of Belshazzar.

During his residence of twelve years in Babylon, Pythagoras must have been a spectator of the wonderful events recorded in the Book of Daniel. The greatest statesman of the day in Babylon, was a Jew. As the time and manner of Ezekiel's death are unknown, and as in this year, Ezekiel, if alive, would not be more than fifty-three years of age, it is by no means improbable that he might have conversed, as tradition asserts, with that prophet. Pythagoras must have been informed of the decree of Cyrus 536, for the return of the Jews, and as he must have been acquainted with the prophecies thereby fulfilled, it is not improbable that he was a wondering spectator of their departure for their own land. At Babylon he undoubtedly saw the schools or universities established by the Jews; for he introduced into his own country institutions which were characterised by similar regulations to those adopted by the Jews.

Struck with astonishment at all he read, or heard, or saw, of this persecuted and favoured people, we cannot be surprised that he should have engrafted many of the purer truths of morality on his system of philosophy.

Pythagoras quitted Babylon in 529, the same year that Cyrus died. It is probable his departure was accelerated by the cruel and tyrannical government of Cambyses his successor. In this year the Greek philosopher returned home; and dissatisfied with the political state of affairs at Samos, he taught his new system, called the Italic philosophy, in the towns of Magna Grecia.

The philosophy of Pythagoras so far as it is known, may be described as a mixture of Persian, Grecian, and Egyptian superstition, interwoven with Jewish doctrines, institutions, and customs. The numerous coincidences between his enactments and those of the Jews are found in the similarity of discipline established in his schools and colleges; in his distinction between the perfect, or the initiated, and the novice, the reλstog, and the veópuroc, or the on, and yo of the Jews; in the covenant among the members of his colleges, in the use of salt, as a sign of union or agreement, and some others.

The doctrines of Pythagoras must have tended to remove many of the evils of polytheism and idolatry.

He acknowledged but one God, the Creator of the world. He had some idea of the sacred name, the Tetragrammaton of the Jews, which he revealed as a mystery to his disciples. He describes the Deity in the very words of the Hebrew Scriptures, as, the , the To ov, the self-existent. He taught by this definition that God was infinite and eternal; a truth which human reason, unassisted by divine revelation, has never yet discovered. He likewise instructed his disciples in the doctrine of a peculiar providence, particularly over good men -the necessity of pure worship-the immortality of the soul-the incorporeality of the Deity. His morality evidently sprung from a purer source than from the

4 Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O A.C. 570. king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we wil! shew the interpretation.

profane worship of Pagan deities; his golden verses (if they are certainly his) are evidently transcripts of the Mosaic precepts; and virtuous will be the life, and tranquil the death of that man who habitually observes the precepts they contain, and thrice reviews the actions of the day, before he resigns himself to rest at night.

The Italic sect flourished till the end of the reign of Alexander. It gave rise to the Eleatic, the Heraclitean, the Epicurean, and the Pyrrhonic sects, whose doctrines however differed materially from those enforced by Pythagoras himself. When the best Pagan philosophy, considered as a system, is compared with Christianity, the observations already made on the speculations of Thales are equally applicable. But when we consider this philosophy as a virtuous effort of the human mind to penetrate through the darkness and superstition by which it was surrounded; and gaining by these efforts, and the light they borrowed from revelation, more pure ideas of morality, and more just notions of a Deity; we are called upon to acknowledge that philosophy was beneficial to man, and that those who acquiesced in the doctrines of Pythagoras, and received the better part of his system, must have been wiser, and purer, than their more ignorant or prejudiced countrymen.

That the Greeks, therefore, were indebted to their intercourse with the Jews for the origin of their philosophy is highly probable: it is, therefore, no less probable, that their literature may be partly traced to the same source. From the temperance Pythagoras uniformly practised, it is probable that his life was extended to a late period. He is supposed to have perished in consequence of a political disturbance in the seventieth Olympiad, about the year 503. If this tradition be correct, he must at this time have entered his eighty-third or eightyfourth year.

Eschylus, the founder of the Greek Drama in its present form, would have been at that time about twenty-five years of age; and though we are not acquainted with the particulars of his early life, we may naturally conclude that one so eminent would have carefully instructed himself in all the philosophy and learning of his age. A Pythagorean in principle, many of his sentiments are the same as those taught in the golden verses of Pythagoras. We may justly conclude, therefore, that this great tragedian was either personally acquainted with, and a disciple of the Samian; or that he was well versed in the system promulgated by that philosopher. Like many of his countrymen, he gave offence to the people, by deviating from received opinions. In the mythology of Eschylus, Dr. Gray observes, there is frequent reference to principles originating in revelation. In the passage cited by Eusebius, he describes the supreme God as a being who is carefully to be distinguished from mortals, having nothing like the body of man. At one time he declares, that God shines forth in unapproachable fire at another he invests Him in the elements, appearing in the wind, thunder, and lightning! He represents the ocean, the rocks, and the fountains as ministering to the Supreme Being: the hills, and the earth, the depths of the sea, and the summits of the mountains as trembling at His presence. The piercing eye of God he describes as overlooking all things, for the glory of the highest

g ch. iii. 9.

A. C. 570.

5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the

God is powerful. His celebrated scene in the Persæ, in which the shade of Darius is summoned by Atossa, is very similar to the account of the appearance of Samuel to Saul, as related in the narrative of the witch of Endor. Many of the Christian fathers have asserted, that the character of "Prometheus" could not have been drawn, unless the author of that drama had been acquainted with the sacred writings, or with at least many of the prophetic books. The subject deserves to be considered at greater length than this note admits. Yet I cannot but observe, that the Dramas of Eschylus exhibit the most decisive evidence of his acquaintance with the sacred writings; and it is probable that they were partly made known to him by his tutor and contemporary, Pythagoras. Similarity of description only, with identity of expression, would not prove this point; these, it is true, might be mere coincidences: but where the same personifications are used, we may justly conclude, that the resemblance is not accidental. In Jeremiah xlvii. 6, we meet with this bold personification-" Oh thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still. How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon."-The same metaphor is adopted by Æschylus,

Ξενὸς δὲ κλήρους ἐπινωμᾷ
χάλυβος, σκυθῶν ἄποικος
κτεάνων χρηματοδαίτας

πικρὸς, ὠμόφρων σίδαρος,

χθόνα ναίειν διαπήλας,

Οπόσαν ἂν καὶ φθιμένους κατέχειν,

Τῶν μεγάλων πεδίων ἀμοίρους.

ETT' ETI Onbaç.-Pors. Edit. line 727.

And, as if the idea was a favourite one with the poet, it is twice again repeated in the same drama. In Ezekiel xvii. 20, we read, Thus saith the Lord God, "I will spread my net over him, and he shall be taken in my snare ;" and the same expression is used in other passages of Scripture, to describe a state of inextricable difficulty, of distress, or ruin. The same metaphor is applied by Eschylus to describe the ruin of Troy

Ω Ζευ βασιλεῦ, καὶ νὺξ φιλία,

Μεγάλων κόσμων κτεάτειρα

Ητ' ἐπὶ Τροίας πύργοις ἔβαλες

Ereyavòv diKrvov.-Agamemnon, line 356, Pors. Edit.

In Ezekiel xxvi. 3.-" I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up." Æschylus has adopted the same idea,

τοῦ γὰρ κῦμα χερσαῖον στρατόυ.

επτ' επι θηβ.-Line 64.

And many other parallel passages might be found. The tragedians who followed Æschylus, although perhaps inferior to him in sublimity, maintained an exalted nobleness of moral sentiment. A higher tone seems to have been given to the public mind in Greece, which cannot entirely be attributed to their poli

h

dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in A.C. 570, 41 pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.

tical institutions, or to the incessant agitation and restlessness of mind induced by their party dissensions. We must refer this intellectual elevation to a more intellectual source: to the spirit of their philosophy, morality, and poetry, which was partially derived from the purer fountains of the Hebrew Scriptures. And the peculiar object of Providence, in thus communicating to the Greeks, through the dispersion and captivity of the Jews, some knowledge of a purer creed, was shewn in subsequent ages, when that language was selected to impart the knowledge of the Scriptures to the world. The universality of the Greek language may be attributed to the general interest excited by the Greek Drama; the splendid compositions of the poets; and the more exalted speculations of their philosophers. The Pagan nations did not, it is true, eat of the fruit of the tree of life; yet they were blessed with some few of its leaves; and the very "leaves of that tree are for the healing of the nations."-Vide Stillingfleet's Origines Sacræ, b. i. ch. 3; Athenian Letters, vol. i. p. 92; Plato, Alcibiad. § 12, 13; Gale's Court of the Gentiles, book ii. ch. 3—10; Warburton's Divine Legat. b. iii. s. 2; Encyclop. Brit. art. Thales and Philosophy, p. 20; Gray's Connection between the Sacred Writings and Heathen Literature, vol. ii. ch. 6 and 9; Josephus cont. Apion; Eusebius præp. Evang. lib. 10. c. 2; Selden de diis Syrus Syntag. 2. ch. 1, 2; the numerous references in Gale, and Dr. Gray; Jamblichus' Life of Pythagoras, translated by Taylor; Cudworth's Intell. System, book i. s. 22, &c. On the philosophical sentiments of Eschylus, see an anonymous paper in the Classical Journal, No. 22.

41 In Daniel i. 5, 6, we read that Daniel, with some other Jewish captives, was placed under the care of the master of the eunuchs, to be instructed for the space of three years in the language and sciences of Chaldea. At the end of that time they were to be admitted to the presence of the king, to stand and serve before him. In Daniel ii. 1, it is said; in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the king dreamed the dream which Daniel interpreted: and as the time appointed for Daniel's improvement had expired, (Dan. i. 18,) it may be asked why this chapter was not inserted in the same place as the first chapter. Prideaux has dated it in the year 603, on the authority of the literal interpretation of the words "in the second year of his reign." It must however be recollected that the inspired writers date from different æras; instances of which have been given in these notes: and Daniel, writing this part of his history in Chaldee, for the use of the Chaldeans, most probably followed the computation prevalent among them; and refers not to the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, as dated from his accession to the throne, but from the second year of his universal monarchy; after Egypt, and all the surrounding nations, who with the Jews had leagued against him, had been subdued. Lightfoot and Hales both agree in making the events related in this chapter succeed Nebuchadnezzar's conquests: and when it is remembered, that in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar, (dated from his accession to the throne of Babylon,) Daniel was still under the care of Melzar; that a short time after Jehoiakim rebelled, depending in all probability upon the league formed against the king of Babylon by the surrounding nations; it cannot be conceived that a prior date can be corIn addition to these arguments, it must be considered, that when Daniel

rect.

h ch. iii. 29.
*Chald. made
pieces.