It is not to be supposed that they, who trace these parallels of mythology with scripture, mean that scripture was its immediate source: as the French Encyclopædists seem to think, when they ridicule the idea of the Grecian poets having deduced their fables from the Mosaic books, of which they knew nothing. The religious separation of the Jews renders it improbable, that even the intellectual philosophy of the Greek sages, as Thales and Pythagoras, should have been indebted for the idea of pure incorporeal deity to the sacred oracles: though Dr. Anderson conceives it probable that “the Mosaic scriptures, and other prophetical writings under the Jewish dispensation, could not be unknown to the priests of Ægypt, Chaldæa, and other adjacent countries.” History of Philosophy, p. 88. But the improbability is greatly increased with respect to the mythological philosophy; nor is it credible that the circumstances of pagan story, on the supposition of their representing the same events as those recorded in the book of Genesis, should have been transferred immediately from the volume of Moses by poets or philosophers into the popular religion. Nations do not borrow vast systems of theology from poets or even from priests. Gale does not suppose that priests or bards imported the Hebrew accounts from the sacred writings; but that they were learnt, through international communication with the Jews, by the Phœnicians; who, in their various nautical enterprizes, carried them to distant countries. But the temple of heathen mythology rests its pillars in the two hemispheres, and overshadows climes unvisited by the navigators of Phœnicia. Its basis must, apparently, be sought without the circle of Jewish report and scripture, in ancient gentile tradition. Stillingfleet convincingly argues, that, assuming the descent of mankind from the posterity of Noah, the obliteration and extinction of all remnants of oral history concerning the ancient world is utterly inconceivable. He proceeds to show that such fragments were, in fact, so preserved in many nations after the dispersion; that they were appropriated by the Phœnicians, Greeks, Italians, and others to their respective countries; and that portions of Noah’s memory, in particular, were retained in many fables under Saturn, Janus, Prometheus, and Bacchus. Similar to this is the outline of the Analytic System; in which, however, the dæmon-worship of the patriarchs of mankind is connected with the arkite and ophite idolatry under the types of the sun and moon. The affinities in the pagan sister-mythologies are explained by the general dissemination of these idolatrous mysteries, and the traditions which they were designed to commemorate, through the dispersion of a peculiar people in the early ages; migrating from a central point, and spreading through the extremest regions of the east and west.