Lastly, Many Authors who have discoursed hereof, have so delivered themselves, and with such intentions, that we cannot from thence deduce a confirmation. For some have written Poetically, as _Ovid_, _Mantuan_, _Lactantius_, _Claudian_, and others: Some have written mystically, as _Paracelsus_ in his Book _De Azoth_, or _De ligno et linea vitæ_; and as several Hermetical Philosophers, involving therein the secret of their Elixir, and enigmatically expressing the nature of their great work. Some have written Rhetorically, and concessively, not controverting, but assuming the question, which taken as granted, advantaged the illation. So have holy men made use hereof as far as thereby to confirm the Resurrection; for discoursing with Heathens who granted the story of the Phœnix, they induced the Resurrection from principles of their own, and positions received among themselves. Others have spoken Emblematically and Hieroglyphically; and so did the _Egyptians_, unto whom the Phœnix was the Hieroglyphick of the Sun. And this was probably the ground of the whole relation; succeeding Ages adding fabulous accounts, which laid together built up this singularity, which every Pen proclaimeth. As for the Texts of Scripture, which seem to confirm the conceit, duly perpended, they add not thereunto. For whereas in that of _Job_, according to the Septuagint or Greek Translation we find the word Phœnix, yet can it have no animal signification; for therein it is not expressed φοῖνιξ, but στέλεχoς φοίνικος, the trunk of the Palm-tree, which is also called Phœnix; and therefore the construction will be very hard, if not applied unto some vegetable nature. Nor can we safely insist upon the Greek expression at all; for though the Vulgar translates it _Palma_, and some retain the word Phœnix, others do render it by a word of a different sense; for so hath _Tremellius_ delivered it: _Dicebam quod apud nidum meum expirabo, et sicut arena multiplicabo dies_; so hath the _Geneva_ and ours translated it, _I said I shall die in my Nest, and shall multiply my days as the sand._ As for that in the Book of Psalms, _Vir justus ut Phœnix florebit_, as _Epiphanius_ and _Tertullian_ render it, it was only a mistake upon the Homonymy of the Greek word Pœnix, which signifies also a Palm-tree. [SN: Consent of names.] Which is a fallacy of equivocation, from a community in name inferring a common nature; and whereby we may as firmly conclude, that Diaphœnicon a purging Electuary hath some part of the Phœnix for its ingredient; which receiveth that name from Dates, or the fruit of the Palm-tree, from whence, as _Pliny_ delivers, the Phœnix had its name.