winds, and beat down and level the swelling and mountainous billows of the sea: for any ebbs and floods there could be none, when the waters were equal, and of one height, over all the face of the earth; and when there were no indraughts, bays, or gulfs to receive a flood, or any descent, or violent falling of waters in the round form of the earth and waters, as aforesaid: and therefore it seemeth most agreeable to reason, that the waters rather stood in a quiet calm, than that they moved with any raging or overbearing violence. And for a more direct proof that the flood made no such destroying alteration, Josephus avoweth that one of those pillars erected by Seth, the third from Adam, was to be seen in his days; which pillars were set up above 1426 years before the flood, counting Seth to be an hundred years old at the erection of them, and Josephus himself to have lived some forty or fifty years after Christ: of whom, although there be no cause to believe all that he wrote, yet that which he avouched of his own time cannot (without great derogation) be called in question. And therefore it may be possible, that some foundation or ruin thereof might then be seen. Now that such pillars were raised by Seth, all antiquity hath avowed. It is also written in Berosus, (to whom, although I give little credit, yet I cannot condemn him in all,) that the city of Enoch, built by Cain about the mountains of Libanus, was not defaced by length of time; yea, the ruins thereof Annius (who commented upon that invented fragment) saith were to be seen in his days, who lived in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile. And if these his words be not true, then was he exceeding impudent: for, speaking of this city of Enoch, he concludeth in this sort: Cujus maxima et ingentis molis fundamenta visuñtur, et vocatur ab incolis regionis, civitas Cain, ut nostri mercatores et peregrini referunt; "The foundation of which huge mass is now to be "seen, and the place is called by the people of that region "the city of Cain, as both our strangers and merchants report." It is also avowed by Pomponius Mela, (to whom I give more credit in these things,) that the city of Joppa was

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built before the flood, over which Cepha was king: whose name, with his brother Phineus, together with the grounds and principles of their religion, was found graven upon certain altars of stone. And it is not impossible, that the ruins of this other city, called Enoch by Annius, might be seen, though founded in the first age: but it could not be of the first city of the world, built by Cain; the place rather than the time denying it.

And to prove directly that the flood was not the cause of mountains, but that there were mountains from the creation, it is written, that the waters of the flood overflowed by fifteen cubits the highest mountains. And Masius Damascenus, speaking of the flood, writeth in this manner: Est supra Minyadam excelsus mons in Armenia, (qui Baris appellatur,) in quo confugientes multos, sermo est, diluvii tempore liberatos; "And upon Minyada there is an high mountain "in Armenia, (called Baris,) unto which it is said that "many fled in the time of the deluge, and that they saved "themselves thereon." Now, although it is contrary to God's word that any more were saved than eight persons, (which Masius doth not avouch but by report,) yet it is a testimony, that such mountains were before the flood, which were afterwards, and ever since, known by the same names, and on which mountains it is generally received that the ark rested; but untruly, as I shall prove hereafter. And again it appeareth, that the mount Sion (though by another name) was known before the flood; on which the Talmudists report that many giants saved themselves also; but (as Annius saith) without all authority, either divine or human.

Lastly, it appeareth that the flood did not so turn upside down the face of the earth, as thereby it was made past knowledge after the waters were decreased, by this, that bzohen Noah sent out the dove the second time, she returned with an olive-leaf in her mouth, which she had plucked, and which (until the trees were discovered) she found not: for otherwise she might have found them floating on the water;

a Gen. iv. 17.

RALEGH, HIST. WORLD. VOL. I.

b Gen. viii. 11.

G

a manifest proof that the trees were not torn up by the roots, nor swam upon the waters, for it is written, folium olivæ raptum, or decerptum, a leaf plucked; which is, to take from a tree, or to tear off. By this it is apparent (there being nothing written to the contrary) that the flood made no such alteration as was supposed, but that the place of paradise might be seen to succeeding ages, especially unto Moses, by whom it pleased God to teach the truth of the world's creation, and unto the prophets which succeeded him both which I take for my warrant, and to guide me in this discovery.

SECT. VI.

That paradise was not the whole earth, as some have thought: making the ocean to be the fountain of those four rivers.

C

THIS conceit of Aug. Chysamensis being answered, who only giveth his opinion for reason, I will in a few words examine that of the Manichees, of Noviomagus, Vadianus, Goropius Becanus, and all those that understood that by paradise was meant the whole earth. But in this I shall not trouble the reader with many words, because, by those places of scripture formerly remembered, this universality will appear altogether improper. The places which Vadianus allegeth, Bring forth fruit and multiply, Fill the earth and subdue it, Rule over every creature, &c. with this of the Acts, d And hath made of one blood all mankind to dwell on all the face of the earth, do no way prove such a generality: for the world was made for man, of which he was lord and governor, and all things therein were ordained of God for his use. Now, although all men were of one and the same fountain of blood originally, and Adam's posterity inhabited in process of time over all the face of the earth; yet it disproveth in nothing the particular garden assigned to e Adam to dress and cultive, in which he lived in so blessed an estate before his transgression. For if there had been

e Gen. i. 28.

d Acts xvii. 26.

• Gen. ii. 8.

no other choice, but that Adam had been left to the universal, Moses would not then have said feastward in Eden, seeing the world hath not east nor west but respectively. And to what end had the angel of God been set to keep the east side and entrance into paradise, after Adam's expulsion, if the universal had been paradise? for then must Adam have been chased also out of the world. For if all the earth were paradise, that place can receive no better construction than this, that Adam was driven out of the world into the world, and out of paradise into paradise, except we should believe with Metrodorus that there were infinite worlds; which to deny he thinks all one as to affirm, "That in so large a field as the universal there "should grow but one thistle." Noviomagus upon Beda seemeth to be led by this, that it was impossible for those three rivers, Ganges, Nilus, and Euphrates, (which water three portions of the world so far distant,) to rise out of one fountain, except the ocean be taken for the well, and the world for the garden.

And it is true, that those four rivers being so understood, there could be no conjecture more probable; but it shall plainly appear, that Pison was falsely taken for Ganges, and Gehon falsely for Nilus, although Ganges be a river by Havilah in India, and Nilus runs through Ethiopia. The Seventy write Chus for Ethiopia; and thereby the errors of the Manichees, and the mistakings of Noviomagus, Goropius, and Vadianus, with others, are made manifest. Yet was their conjecture far more probable than that of Ephrem, Cyrillus, and Athanasius, that paradise was seated far beyond the ocean sea, and that Adam waded through it, and at last came toward the country in which he was created, and was buried at mount Calvary in Jerusalem. And certainly, though all those of the first age were of great stature, and so continued many years after the flood, yet Adam's shin-bones must have contained a thousand fathom, and much more, if he had forded the ocean; but this opi

f Gen. iii. 24.

nion is so ridiculous, as it needs no argument to disprove

it.

SECT. VII.

Of their opinion which make paradise as high as the moon and of others which make it higher than the middle region of the air.

THIRDLY, whereas Beda saith, and as the schoolmen affirm paradise to be a place altogether removed from the knowledge of men, (locus a cognitione hominum remotissimus,) and Barcephas conceived that paradise was far in the east, but mounted above the ocean and all the earth, and near the orb of the moon, (which opinion, though the schoolmen charge Beda withal, yet Pererius lays it off from Beda, upon Strabus, and his master Rabanus;) and whereas Rupertus, in his geography of paradise, doth not much differ from the rest, but finds it seated next or nearest heaven; it may seem, that all these borrowed this doctrine out of Plato, and Plato out of Socrates: but neither of them (as I conceive) well understood; who (undoubtedly) took this place for heaven itself, into which the souls of the blessed were carried after death.

g True it is, that these philosophers durst not, for fear of the Areopagites, (in this and many other divine apprehensions,) set down what they believed in plain terms, especially Plato: though Socrates in the end suffered death for acknowledging one only powerful God; and therefore did the Devil himself do him that right, as by an oracle, to pronounce him the wisest man. h Justin Martyr affirmeth that Plato had read the scriptures; and St. Augustine gave this judgment of him, as his opinion, that, few things changed, he might be counted a Christian. And it seemeth to me, that both Tertullian and Eusebius conceive that Socrates, by that place aforesaid, meant the celestial paradise, and not this of Eden. Solinus, I grant, reporteth that there is a place exceeding delightful and healthful, upon the top of mount Atho, (called Acrithonos,) which

* Diog. Laert. in Sco.

h Just. Mart. adm. ad Gent. Aug.